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[EN VIDÉO] This biocompatible spray turns medical objects into tiny robots An easy way to make millirobots by coating objects with magnetic spray has been developed in joint research led by a CityU scientist. As the magnetic coating is biocompatible and can be disintegrated into powder if needed, this technology demonstrates the potential for biomedical applications.
Small but endowed with a delirious trigger, this tiny robot has only one mission: sauter the highest possible. Designed by a team of researchers from UC Santa Barbara in the United States, it is capable of reaching a height of 30 meters in height. It’s better than any robot and even better than the insects or animals with the greatest trigger relative to their weight. For example, the Cercopoidea, a small insect that jumps from plant to plant, can soar to a height of 70 cm, the equivalent of 115 times the length of its body.
Surprisingly, thanks to the rubber bands, this carbon fiber arch structure can be compressed to act as a powerful spring without breaking. This jumping robot is capable of reaching the highest height — about 30 meters — of any other animal to date, whether mechanical or biological. © nature video
Big trigger for a featherweight
The invention, which was entitled to a publication in the journal Nature, weighs only 14 grams. It is rudimentary and rests on a kind of spring made up of arcs of compression in carbon fibers. Rubber bands keep the structure in place when it flattens. All of the rubber bands are held on a string connected to a small motor.
It is the latter which comes to apply the tension to the arcs, then releases the compression so that the robot can jump. The researchers were able to observe that, thanks to this structure of rubber bands, this spring can be compressed more strongly, without the arches breaking. According to the researchers, on the Lunewith only one jump this robot could reach 125 meters in height while traveling half a kilometer. It remains to find a use for it.
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