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Uh-Oh: Robotic Starfish Can Squeeze Under Doors

November 29, 2011 / and just what do you think yooooooou're doing?, curse you ursula!, cut its air hoses!, cut off its legs!, get back in the water!, harvard, king triton is pissed you're stealing his designs, moving, no no no no no, nowhere to run nowhere to hide, sea life, slow, squishy, starfish, stomping on things

robotic-starfish.jpg

This is a video of a robotic starfish developed by scientits (not changing it) at Harvard. It's powered by pneumatics and can squeeze under a door, crawl up the a leg of a bed, and be hugging your face before you finally wake from that dream where all your teeth fall out and you show up for a job interview dressed as a lady. *eyeing own fake taytays* I'm a shoo-in for this position.

In the research paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes how the robot crawled under a glass barrier just two centimetres high. This gives the robot an edge over robots that mimic real skeletons, and has potential applications in dangerous search and rescue missions.

*Eye barrel-roll* Search and rescue missions, riiiiiiiiiiiight. Did I mention it can only move at 13-meters (~42-feet) an hour? Because that sounds like a pretty slow search. Heavy on the search, light on the rescue. Besides, it's a f***ing starfish. Starfish don't rescue people. This isn't The Little Mermaid, people.

Hit the jump for the cut off its arms and see if they grow back! in action.

Soft-bodied pneumatic robot crawls like a starfish [wired]

Thanks to MR SQUIBB, Lord Tarl, Mike from Jersey, TimeStreamer, Boomsling, phzik and Disposablesteve, all of whose parents are excellent namers.

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There are Comments

  • Wow, this is incredible - so do these cretins actually exist for real as well then? 

  • Jarno Salo

    I have never seen a door with 2 cm space under it.

  • Brony_Powah

    They should improve the support system with air activated suction cups...

  • Al_Capwn

    I guess I missed the part where it went under a door.

  • take that shit away from my anus.

  • Cool! These are like the precursor to the crawling robots in Robopocalypse.

  • On second thought -- not so cool. We're gonna die.

  • Guest

    This is a unique concept using the method o' pumping air for mobility. It's a good concept for other implications.

  • implementations or applications not implications

  • When will they be available in pet stores?

  • Hannah C

    You used the incorrect form of its.

  • zeroneuronsfiring

    Did he correct it since you posted this? If nothing changed, you're wrong.

  • Hannah C

    It changed, dude.

  • FIRST!  and that starfish was damn SLOW :s HAIL TO THE ROBOTS!

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