Robo-Gecko Climbs Glass 143
galactic_grub writes "Researchers at Stanford have developed a robot that mimics the extraordinary climbing skills of the Gecko. These creatures can climb sheer surfaces thanks to the intermolecular forces exerted by millions of tiny hairs their feet, called setae. The robot, Stickybot, has polymer pads on its feed with synthetic setae. Check out the video of it climbing up a sheet of glass."
Hrm.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Flat things do it too (Score:3, Interesting)
Speed (Score:4, Interesting)
Otherwise it was kinda cool.
Re:Obligatory (Score:2, Interesting)
Basically a dry foam covering on the wall which could leave prints from whatever tries to climb it.
Because the surface will be fragile there would be nothing to get a grip on so it would fall, its like us trying to climb a sand-dune.
You could even get a spray on compound and touchup bits which get disturbed.
cool but not cool enough (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:2, Interesting)
But I am both happy with any technology that saves or prevents the loss of human life ( on either side of the conflict to be honest ) and to know that some people out there know that first off, we have a military in Canada and secondly, they understand the contributions we do infact make. I would say 99% of Americans dont realize Canada sent troops to both Veitnam and Korea, let alone the fact that we do infact have special forces ( yes... Canada actually has special forces... ) in Iraq as we speak.
Bravo to you, and I hope your experiences along side the Canadian army were good ones.
dusty, sticky feet (Score:3, Interesting)
Others are aware of the conspiracy... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/science/rotm/ [theregister.co.uk]
A very amusing read...
Re:Flat things do it too (Score:1, Interesting)
A common misconception about glass (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone will probably bring up the old glass windows with thick bits at the bottom as an incorrect example of glass flowing (creeping) over time at room temperature. Consider - if you are a very clever person building a Cathedral with very large heavy glass windows of varying cross section, which end would you put at the bottom? The float glass method we use today was not around centuries ago, so builders did not have the nice panes of glass we have today.
The disordered glassy state is also possible in metals and can have some advantages - for instance in an iron based glass the magnetic properties are very good and the strength is high. These materials are made with the right mixture of elements and a very rapid cooling rate (molten to solid in milliseconds) and are not stable at room temperature - but are called "metastable" because it will take centuries at room temperature to diffuse into the stable crystalline structure.
One last thing - crystalline solids like lead alloys flow too with a high enough temperature and stress - like big lead organ pipes hundreds of years old or high pressure steam tubing over a few years. You don't need the glassy structure for creep to occur.
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:5, Interesting)
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/7/6/4/1 [physicsweb.org] has details and pictures of the progress as of 2003; the material worked in the short term, but got clogged with dirt as you mentioned... and the setae stuck to themselves, as can be seen in the second picture there.