🤖🐸 American researchers have created a small robot about the size of a palm and weighing only about 98 grams.
Its main superpower is behaving almost like a real frog.
The robot can jump across various surfaces, push off using special elastic elements and even move in water.
The study was published back on 18 September, and on 7 October the scientists showed in detail how the device works.
In the future, such robots could be useful where ordinary machines have difficulty moving: for example, among rocks, in water, on uneven terrain or during search operations.
But there is one small philosophical point in this story.
Humanity spent years of research, calculations, engineering and experiments to create a device capable of doing what an ordinary frog does from birth — for free and without instructions.
What's more, a real frog additionally:
swims,
jumps,
charges itself with food
and also eats mosquitoes.
So the score so far:
frog — 4, robot — 2. 😄
But engineering progress does not give up.
