Apparently, all those other robot designs have been wrong. It actually takes four legs to actually make it any kind of distance, or to stay up-right. This creation is called Ranger, and it just managed to break world record. While the distance is impressive in of itself, it's more about the power source inside this four-legged design. After all, it's the real shining achievement. Other than this guy's balance, that is.
It took Ranger 10 hours, 40 minutes, and 48 seconds to complete the 14.3 mile journey. More striking, is that the robot managed to use only one penny's worth of electricity for every three miles it completed. And while there's a person controlling the robot via remote control, the four legs are controlled by six separate microprocessors. And while those eyes and ears may look useful, they actually don't have any sensors in them -- they're just foam padding, just in case the robot were to fall over.
Ranger went 14.3 miles on a single charge. If we could get that same power to actually be used in some other form of technology, where we can see the same longevity with a single power source without needing to be charged every hour, that could mean a lot of good things for the future. Until then, though, we have four-legged robots breaking world records. That's cool, too.