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Monday July 23, 2007
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File this one under creepy emerging sci-fi tech: super-crazy cool, with more than a hint of big brother paranoia. It seems Harvard University microroboticist Robert Wood, who's surely smarter than he should be, has crafted a 60mg robot fly with a three centimeter wingspan. According to robotbloggers at waziwazi, it mimics the flight of a real fly and is "constructed from carbon fiber and electroactive polymers that change shape with an applied voltage." That last bit should sound all too familiar for fans of the last Batman flick.
Of course, this uncanny little bugger is being funded by the military tech folks at DARPA, not by a vengeful Bruce Wayne. And it's got a ways to go: It can currently only fly in one direction, and is tethered, because at that size and weight they haven't found an on-board way to power it yet. Still, those hurdles seem surmountable, considering what Wood and his teem have accomplished thus far. Look for this thing to autonomously buzzing about in years to come, increasing the paranoia from here to Baghdad and beyond. The one thing I want to know is if any similarly smart people are working on robot bug spray, you know, just in case.
Clicky clicky for more pictures and a video of the wing in motion.
[Image via waziwazi]
Post by Matt Safford
Posted By:
Gearlog
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