Robots can serve pizza, crawl over alien planets, swim like octopuses and jellyfish, cosplay as humans, and even perform surgery. But can they walk on water?
Rhagobot isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind at the mention of a robot. Inspired by Rhagovelia water striders, semiaquatic insects also known as ripple bugs, these tiny bots can glide across rushing streams because of the robotization of an evolutionary adaptation.
Rhagovelia (as opposed to other species of water striders) have fan-like appendages toward the ends of their middle legs that passively open and close depending on how the water beneath them is moving. This is why they appear to glide effortlessly across the water’s surface. Biologist Victor Ortega-Jimenez of the University of California, Berkeley, was intrigued by how such tiny insects can accelerate and pull off rapid turns and other maneuvers, almost as if they are flying across a liquid surface.
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Source: Ars Technica
