The new emphasis in robotics is on small, adaptable robots that can traverse areas unfit for humans. Researchers are increasingly looking at shape-changing materials, and modelling robots after cockroaches. Cockroaches are among nature's most successful creatures, have been around since the dinosaur, and are so well-adapted that humans have found them essentially impossible to eradicate. It is not surprising, then, that scientists would like to imbue robots with many of the same qualities that cockroaches have. A cockroach's leg, for instance, is a marvel of nature, and allows a roach to react immediately to changes in the environment. One of the challenges of this approach is to get computer equipment small enough to fit in a space the size of a box of matches, without degrading functionality.
Rob's Note: Oh, I hope they don't build self-replicating metal cockroaches …
USER COMMENTS 50 comment(s)
|Self-replicating… (12:40pm EST Thu Sep 05 2002)
Can you say “Matrix”
First post, finally
Just my 2¢ – by Bill
|Spare space on wafers (2:48pm EST Thu Sep 05 2002)
Its too bad they can use the spare space on Intel and AMD waffers to prototype these parts.
Heck they could burn little 15GHZ Commodore 64's on those slivers.
HA HA HA
– by Illuminati
|????? (4:12pm EST Thu Sep 05 2002)
They may be “successful,” but that doesn't mean they're the best. Look at the way those things run–they move all their legs at once because their brains a so weak they can't coordinate their legs. I'd say model the Ant–now there's an impressive little piece of work. – by Ziwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi
|Z9x(iw)i (10:47pm EST Thu Sep 05 2002)
Cockroaches are not individuals. They are cells in a system. To truly emulate (and superpass) them, the little roboroaches need wireless interconnection.
One you can squash. “Wha chu gonna do” when 10,000 choreographed Ultra-Robo-Roaches are coming for you?
Cue the end of the world Blood Music. – by UrGeek
|re: UrGeek (8:20am EST Fri Sep 06 2002)
True, the idea of ten thousand Ultra-Robo-Roaches sounds like the making of the latest Hollywood action movie starring Ben Afflection, but they're just a nasty breeding hive. Ants (and bees for that matter) are disciplined colonies that work together.
More to the point of making a Robot, Ants are able to handle several times their own weight (since I imagine tiny robots might be building tiny things) and are able to crawl up and over all kinds of surfaces.
The main virtue I see to making a robot of a cockroach (Sice I doubt the robots will be breeding like them) is they're pretty basic. – by Ziwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi
|twut?!?! (11:44am EST Fri Sep 06 2002)
this didn't help @ all! – by nicole
|good lord!!! (4:02pm EST Tue Sep 10 2002)
this is perhaps the gayest website i have ever seen. you have no life and you all are a bunch of dorks with nothing better to do than be gay.
good lord. – by GOD!
|robot roaches (12:25pm EST Sun Aug 31 2003)
In all of your discussing of which insect would be the best robot, you have left out the most important question: What does this mean to government control of the people, how terrifying this is, what it means to human rights and privacy, what these robots could ultimately be used for: as spies against dissident groups.
Also, today a microchip in a robot-roach and what tomorrow? A microchip in a robot-human? Why not? People like you would totally miss the point and only discuss which type of person would be the best robot. Wake up! – by Jessy Davka