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Robot insect walks
on water
@
Biology
Aug 11 2003 - 05:03 GMT |
From: eightball
:
Scientists have
developed a robotic insect which walks on water. The insect's
long hairy legs leave telltale vortex trails in the wate The
team, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
in the US, were testing out a theory about how one family of
foraging insects performs the same trick. Read More Previous theories put forward to
explain how water striders (Gerridae) manage to propel
themselves across the surface of ponds and lakes had one major
problem. They predicted that young water striders should be
too weak to move, while nature shows clearly that they are
not. Rowing and surface tension Surface tension explains why
water striders do not sink below the surface as they stand on
water. Water striders are foraging insects which can walk on
water Enlarge Image But a careful experimental study was
needed to explain how they propel themselves forward. "What we
did was to apply some conventional techniques of flow
visualisation in fluid dynamics," MIT's John Bush told BBC
News Online. "You basically sprinkle dye or tiny particles
into the water and record what happens with a high-speed
camera." Dr Bush and his collaborators, David Hu and Brian
Chan, discovered that the secret to the water strider's
locomotion is that it rows across the water without
penetrating the surface. Robostrider, the water strider's
robotic counterpart The rowing motion leaves a telltale vortex
behind each foot, clearly visible on camera. The robotic
version of the water strider is bigger than its real-life
counterpart and its motion less graceful, but it does seem to
show that the MIT team has managed to capture the essence of a
natural phenomenon. Details of the research appear in the
journal Nature.
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