Quick assembling cockroach robot lives through a 90-foot fall

After the shape-shifting soft Chembot we saw yesterday, here’s a sturdier bot that’ll give you goosebumps for escaping scratch-free after a 92-foot fall. Amazing is the only word I can utter. Developed by UC Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, the Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod, or DASH, as they call this junky bot, is a robot that can be assembled in an hour and is good to move quickly even after that 90-odd-foot drop.

dash cockroach robot

Measuring 4-inches and weighing utterly less at only 16-grams, the six-legged bugbot is resurrected in folding cardboard and polymer sheets. The legs are propelled by a DC motor stuffed in while a servomotor helps the robot in navigating to either side. Designed in a flexible frame, to live out the falls, the bot is good to surmount obstacles taller than itself and creep.. err, move at 5 feet a second on the ground. Video after the jump.

The cockroach has the ability to be inducted into the military someday so the researchers are preparing the spy in better materials, with finer turning ability and all-terrain mobility.

Via: CNet