Around the world engineers create robots, inspired by the plasticity and possibilities of insects, so there is now a huge number of all sorts of robotic, butterflies and caterpillars, which are pretty well know how to crawl, walk, jump and even fly. Harvard went ahead and created the spider robots from the usual cocktail straws. As it turned out, they not only are perfect to suck soft drinks from the Cup, but great help out engineers, if they need to create a cheap, but practical and flexible joints for their new robots.
To make a joint for a robot, you just need to notch a tube, bend it at the cut and staple a piece of rubber hose. Then using a small pneumomechanical in the tube is pumped the air, and she straightens up. If it is there to pump, it bends.
Robots make great. They can run on any surface with difficult terrain, almost weigh nothing, and due to its flexible design can get even in hard to reach places, or jump higher.
The developers have already tested robots with two, three and six limbs. To complete serious tasks of the spiders of the tubes do not fit, but the idea is in any case interesting.
At Harvard, started making robots out of cocktail straws
Vyacheslav Larionov