Japanese TORo II gallops ahead at a mechanical snail’s pace (video)

Snails with benefits ? Our salt shaker might disagree. But some enterprising engineers over at Japan’s Chuo University managed to show this garden-variety pest into fodder for mechatronic inspiration. In accordance with the gastropod’s preferred approach to ‘galloping’ — wherein waves of foot-to-head muscle contractions propel it forward — researchers on the Mechatronics Lab created TORo II, an omnidirectional robot which can make its method to a hospital near you. Why’s that? Well, the bot’s large gripped surface area makes it ideal for narrow, slippery environments — so it won’t budge if knocked into (though you possibly can land up at the emergency room floor). Although the original movement technique have been used to create other mecha-mollusks up to now, the team behind this project made certain to create a few of their very own ceiling and wall-climbing critters — suction definitely included. We admit, we type of feel guilty in regards to the sodium chloride transgressions of our youth. And now that we all know snails might possibly be useful, it is only a question of time before the bedbug gets repurposed. Full omnidirectional video awesomeness after the break.

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This post is tagged: chuo university, garden variety, matter of time, mechatronics lab, muscle contractions, preferred method, sodium chloride