Another, and as yet unpublished, addition to the SandBot, was changing the soft feet to harder feet. A hard foot would presumably sink more easily into a soft, unstable substrate, but the hard feet proved faster for the robot. In nature, sand-crawling crabs also employ hard feet. The scientists explain millions of years must have evolved an effective sand-walking solution, even if scientists don't yet understand the logic. "Evolution has achieved an efficient solution to this complex problem," said Harry Swinney, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin. The best place to use legged robotic locomotion might not be the sandy beaches of Earth, but rather on the dusty plains of the moon, Mars or other planets. "A legged animal can negotiate rough and uneven terrain," said Andrew Biewener of Harvard University, who studies animal locomotion. "A traditional vehicle transport with wheels requires hard, flat and smooth surfaces." Li and his adviser at Georgia Tech, Daniel Goldman, hope to work with NASA to develop a legged extraterrestrial explorer, but until then SandBot will help biologists better understand Earth-bound creatures. "If you have a hypothesis [about how an animal moves] and can build and test a device that employs those principles, it can be very compelling evidence," said Biewener. "It validates the biologists study of the animal." Related Links: |
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