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."
Since its only a blurb, here is basically the article in full
A GECKO-like robot with sticky feet could soon be scampering up a wall near you. See a video of the robot in action here (24MB mov file).
Geckos can climb up walls and across ceilings thanks to the millions of tiny hairs, or setae, on the surface of their feet. Each of these hairs is attracted to the wall by an intermolecular force called the van der Waals force, and this allows the gecko's feet to adhere.
Stickybot, developed by Mark Cutkosky and his team at Stanford University in California, has feet with synthetic setae made of an elastomer. These tiny polymer pads ensure a large area of contact between the feet and the wall, maximising the van der Waals stickiness.
The Pentagon is interested in developing gecko-inspired climbing gloves and shoes. Cutkosky says a Stickybot-type robot would also make an adept planetary rover or rescue bot.
Frankly, I cant believe this tech couldnt have been done already, even twenty or thirty years ago. I have to imagine we've had the tech to do adhesiveness on demand based on an external stimuli ( such as electricity ) for many years. We have had the ability when the opposite material is metal since atleast the beginning of the space race, but even sticking to any surface on demand shouldnt be too difficult.
My question is, does the armies interest stem from creating an army of spidermen?
No spidermen, but they're certainly interested in small devices with sensors (cameras/chemicals) that can scale walls, crawl through small spaces, and go where no man has gone before.
They also mention the rescue bot - that sounds like a great application for a collapsed building.
It has only been in the last several years that scientists realized that gecko's use VDW forces to clime. It may seem obvious, but no one imagined that it would be possible to create enough VDW interactions to allow a large animal to stick to any surface. It works by simply increasing the surface contact to a ridiculous degree. What is amazing here is that this will work on any solid, clean surface. There are an extraordinary number of applications. Another huge benefit to this is that no energy is required to maintain adhesion.
I assume you are aware that glass is in fact a liquid at room temp
Not in this room - since I am not on fire. Glass is a glass - a disordered state that could be considered to be similar to an incredibly dense liquid that isn't moving around if you want to use an analogy - but remember it is an analogy. Labelling silicon dioxide dioxide glass as a liquid is an oversimplification possibly used by science teachers talking to young children - in all other situations it is just wrong.
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.
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 thin end of course! This way, when glass inevitably will start flowing, it will have the effect of "evening out" the uneven thickness, rather than accentuating it further.
Frankly, I cant believe this tech couldnt have been done already, even twenty or thirty years ago. I have to imagine we've had the tech to do adhesiveness on demand based on an external stimuli ( such as electricity ) for many years. We have had the ability when the opposite material is metal since atleast the beginning of the space race, but even sticking to any surface on demand shouldnt be too difficult.
The big problem with gecko gloves or any other application of this principle is keeping them clean. T
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.
Frankly, I cant believe this tech couldnt have been done already, even twenty or thirty years ago. I have to imagine we've had the tech to do adhesiveness on demand based on an external stimuli ( such as electricity ) for many years. We have had the ability when the opposite material is metal since atleast the beginning of the space race, but even sticking to any surface on demand shouldnt be too difficult.
Thing is though, the military already has drones that can basically hover silently for hours and are the extremely small. I dont really see what the advantage of a wall hugger version would be unless 1) the ability to stick to the wall doesnt require any energy to maintain or 2) they are sufficently cheaper.
The feet are unpowered polymer pads covered with spikes, essentially. That doesn't require power to maintain the grip.
Moving, as you no doubt noticed, requires that the pads be peeled backwards. Thousands of microscopic spikes provide tremendous traction, but it isn't going to impact tyres that much (yet). Perhaps climbing apparatus will see this material soon.
Mod points for being off topic be damned, Im just delighted to see that you know Canadians are picking up the slack in Afghanistan. Im not kidding in any way here, its heartening to see that people notice our small but meaningful contribution. Many people based on Canada for not supporting Iraq, but seemed to forget that we have our people dying in Afghanistan as part of the war on terror too.
Frankly, I would always rather see a machine killed over a human. Sadly, in military thinking im the exception to the norm. It really does boil down to total cost of ownership ( TOC ) like in any other business. That depresses me greatly, but point blank the military assigns a value to each "asset" and acts accordingly. To use a horrible example, if the military had to chose between sacraficing an empty billion dollar aircraft carrier or a dozen troops, we both know how they will choose.
They could be used as small weapons filled with say gas to knock people out. People would all be like, oh look a cool gecko-ooo ARRGGHHH *hack hack hack..... thud*
I for one welcome our van der Waals force utilising Stickybot overloards.
Seriously though, FTA "The Pentagon is interested in developing gecko-inspired climbing gloves and shoes." I want some of those, these if ever actually created (not sure what issues here would be but I assume mass, surface area and gravity would play in there somewhere) would have a huge impact on normal life. Just imagine the benefits to burglars, the next invention is going to have to be some very very slippery paint:)
> I for one welcome our van der Waals force utilising Stickybot overlords.
...and I'd like to remind them that as an open-source HTML rendering engine, I could be useful in convincing people to save a bunch of money on their car insurance!
Chemically, Teflon is polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE, a carbon chain with flourine occupying all other bonding (polyethylene, one of the simplest synthetic polymers, is a carbon chain with hydrogens). The carbon-fluorine bond is particularly strong, resulting in the non-stick properties. I'd assume the chemical properties of Fluorplastic paint to be similar to those of PTFE. I recently read a newspaper article that gave light descriptions of how PTFE was bonded to various types of cooking ware (can't remem
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.
Its the mysterious blue smoke that runs all electronics. If they've let the mysterious blue smoke out, that's it for the servers. They'll never work again.
It didn't mimic the speed of a Gecko, though. That thing was dog slow, and about as sticky as a toy dart shot on a brick wall. Or a real dart for that matter.
The issue was with prying a foot off the glass--it took a fair bit of force, and sometimes the recoil afterward was enough to free a second foot. A more robust implementation with the same pad system would determine whether an additional foot was freed and reattach both.
Several women at Stanford's Delta Sigma Theta sorority have reported sightings of strange reptilian creatures crawling around and affixing themselves to the exterior windows of their campus bathroom facilities. Sally Railmane, a sophomore at the school, described a strange light burst, similar to a camera flash, coming from the window creatures as she stepped out of the shower this afternoon. "It was creepy" she said.
University officials were unavailable for comment.
Glass is pretty rough stuff on a molecular level though, and there are so many varieties of it and methods of polishing the surface of glass - teflon however, with such a low surface energy, would have been a much more revealing test.
On another (slightly OT) note, it's a shame to see military applications first in line to be mentioned. I don't mean to downplay their importance in bankrolling many innovative technologies and applications but for possible wartime uses to be implied between the lines after every new discovery has to play some influence on how Americans (and brits to a lesser extent) view war - something other than atrocious.
becasue the military ahs the money for the research, no company will spend millions on a maybe. Once a product is succesfull, the US will get it's money back via tax dollars.
I would also like to point out that the trend has been for the military to get tools that are more effictive at getting a precise target. Which means fewer people killed on both sides.
It's bad enough knowing that we're getting closer every day to the moment when robots decide that we're just too much damned trouble to keep around but do we have to keep developing new things to make them impossible to escape from? Anyone else see this and start connecting the slashdot articles?
There was the one about the Japanese chick robot followed by the similar South Korean model, then a little farther back we have our artificial "muscle".
Combine those with the story a year or so back about the robots that power themselves by digesting organic matter and frankly all my best nightmares start out on Slashdot. I'll probably be in my 60's when the sexy Japanese carnivorous wall climbing robots with super strength come to get me.
How well does this stuff grip slippery surfaces like beer bottles or oiled/sweaty human skin? There might be some interesting applications for gloves if it does.
I saw a presentation on this work last year. The concept of tiny hairs sticking to surfaces is not difficult. The tricky part is keeping the hairs clean, because they stick to EVERYTHING, quickly develop a coating of dust and stop sticking. Scientists have yet to mimick the self-cleaning properties of Gecko feet as they curl off the surface after each step. Until they do, robo-geckos will not function long except in a well-scrubbed lab.
Cutkowsky has had this technology working for several years now. It's not just for glass; it works on many other building surfaces, too, like concrete walls. It doesn't require a smooth surface. They've had robots climbing up buildings at Stanford for a while now.
They have a new and powerful fabrication technique, too. They use a stereolithography machine to make their parts, but they use it in an unusual way. They use a machine that's intended to make multicolored objects from several different colored materials, and load it up with materials with different physical and electrical properties. So they can make a one-piece 3D part with soft parts and hard parts, or insulating parts and conductive parts. This is the beginning of a whole new kind of fabrication, which is what Cutkowsky is really into.
if i remember correctly, the climbing bit is achieved by a combination of friction (between all the little hair things, there is a rather lot of surface area when they all lay sideways) and static cling.
Didn't even bother to read the article, eh, my Candian friend?
"Each of these hairs is attracted to the wall by an intermolecular force called the van der Waals force, and this allows the gecko's feet to adhere."
It's not your comment that pisses me off, it's the fact that it got moderated up... BAD MODS! NO COOKIE!
Hrm.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hrm.... (Score:2)
The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:3, Informative)
A GECKO-like robot with sticky feet could soon be scampering up a wall near you. See a video of the robot in action here (24MB mov file). Geckos can climb up walls and across ceilings thanks to the millions of tiny hairs, or setae, on the surface of their feet. Each of these hairs is attracted to the wall by an intermolecular force called the van der Waals force, and this allows the gecko's feet to adhere. Stickybot, developed by Mark Cutkosky and his team at Stanford University in California, has feet with synthetic setae made of an elastomer. These tiny polymer pads ensure a large area of contact between the feet and the wall, maximising the van der Waals stickiness. The Pentagon is interested in developing gecko-inspired climbing gloves and shoes. Cutkosky says a Stickybot-type robot would also make an adept planetary rover or rescue bot. Frankly, I cant believe this tech couldnt have been done already, even twenty or thirty years ago. I have to imagine we've had the tech to do adhesiveness on demand based on an external stimuli ( such as electricity ) for many years. We have had the ability when the opposite material is metal since atleast the beginning of the space race, but even sticking to any surface on demand shouldnt be too difficult.
My question is, does the armies interest stem from creating an army of spidermen?
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:4, Funny)
I agree. I don't understand what's involved to make this possible, ego, it must be easy!
Build me one of them search engine thingies. We'll go up against Google!
Parent
Re: The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:3, Insightful)
They also mention the rescue bot - that sounds like a great application for a collapsed building.
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re:A common misconception about glass (Score:3, Funny)
The thin end of course! This way, when glass inevitably will start flowing, it will have the effect of "evening out" the uneven thickness, rather than accentuating it further.
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:3, Insightful)
The big problem with gecko gloves or any other application of this principle is keeping them clean. T
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.
Parent
Actually, this isn't new. It's been done before (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/0 9/rfull/robots.html [berkeley.edu]
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ar [sfgate.com]
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:2)
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:2)
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:2)
Pick #1 (Score:2)
Moving, as you no doubt noticed, requires that the pads be peeled backwards. Thousands of microscopic spikes provide tremendous traction, but it isn't going to impact tyres that much (yet). Perhaps climbing apparatus will see this material soon.
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:2)
Re:The Article. Shocked this is new (Score:2, Interesting)
But I am both
A new weapon? (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously though, FTA "The Pentagon is interested in developing gecko-inspired climbing gloves and shoes." I want some of those, these if ever actually created (not sure what issues here would be but I assume mass, surface area and gravity would play in there somewhere) would have a huge impact on normal life. Just imagine the benefits to burglars, the next invention is going to have to be some very very slippery paint
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Informative)
Already invented... you're looking for Fluoroplastic Paint [daikin.co.jp].
Parent
Re:Obligatory (Score:3, Informative)
Chemically, Teflon is polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE, a carbon chain with flourine occupying all other bonding (polyethylene, one of the simplest synthetic polymers, is a carbon chain with hydrogens). The carbon-fluorine bond is particularly strong, resulting in the non-stick properties. I'd assume the chemical properties of Fluorplastic paint to be similar to those of PTFE. I recently read a newspaper article that gave light descriptions of how PTFE was bonded to various types of cooking ware (can't remem
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.
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Otherwise it wouldn't be much fun.
Parent
Flat things do it too (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Utility gecko (Score:5, Funny)
Mirrors, anyone?
-- n
I know that smell - (Score:2)
video url (Score:5, Informative)
here's the video URL:
http://bdml.stanford.edu/twiki/pub/Main/StickyBot
Speed (Score:4, Interesting)
Otherwise it was kinda cool.
Re:Speed (Score:2)
anything new? (Score:2)
Last of heard of this technique it had a problem in that it gets dirty VERY quickly and starts losing its sticky
Having to hire a window washing crew everytime i want to play spiderman downtown gets too expensive and really slows down those rescues
In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)
University officials were unavailable for comment.
cool but not cool enough (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:cool but not cool enough (Score:2)
I would also like to point out that the trend has been for the military to get tools that are more effictive at getting a precise target. Which means fewer people killed on both sides.
The important question (Score:2)
Doomed (Score:2, Funny)
Why, after seeing the mention of "Government" in that article, does that name look like Mark Cut Cost"-ky ?
Bad Plan, what are they thinking? (Score:5, Funny)
There was the one about the Japanese chick robot followed by the similar South Korean model, then a little farther back we have our artificial "muscle".
Combine those with the story a year or so back about the robots that power themselves by digesting organic matter and frankly all my best nightmares start out on Slashdot. I'll probably be in my 60's when the sexy Japanese carnivorous wall climbing robots with super strength come to get me.
Others are aware of the conspiracy... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/science/rotm/ [theregister.co.uk]
A very amusing read...
Power of the Gecko (Score:5, Funny)
I don't see that showing up in IE7! Hah!
Re:Power of the Gecko (Score:3, Funny)
Not only that, but it could save you 15% or more on your auto insurance!
All you need... (Score:3, Funny)
You're nicked! (Score:2, Funny)
dusty, sticky feet (Score:3, Interesting)
This works even better than the article says (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the web site for the project. [stanford.edu]
They have a new and powerful fabrication technique, too. They use a stereolithography machine to make their parts, but they use it in an unusual way. They use a machine that's intended to make multicolored objects from several different colored materials, and load it up with materials with different physical and electrical properties. So they can make a one-piece 3D part with soft parts and hard parts, or insulating parts and conductive parts. This is the beginning of a whole new kind of fabrication, which is what Cutkowsky is really into.
At Home Version (Score:3, Funny)
I, for one, can't wait for the "at home" version.
Finally... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:my $0.02 (CDN) (BAD MODS) (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't even bother to read the article, eh, my Candian friend?
"Each of these hairs is attracted to the wall by an intermolecular force called the van der Waals force, and this allows the gecko's feet to adhere."
It's not your comment that pisses me off, it's the fact that it got moderated up... BAD MODS! NO COOKIE!
Parent