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NASA Prototypes New 'Tensegrity' Robots

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday February 27 2014, @08:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the Tinker-Toys-IN-SPAAACE dept.

Popeidol writes:

"NASA is testing out some new designs for robots based on Tensegrity (Short for Tensional Integrity, a principle Buckminster Fuller helped develop). The idea is that you have rigid rods joined by flexible joints and cables, which gives you a highly-resilient and flexible structure. NASA calls it the Super Ball Bot "for its ability to bounce on landing and shift its shape via multiple small motors to roll across a surface."

There are still plenty of problems to be solved, the positive attributes mean they're currently investigating the option of simultaneously deploying many of them to the surface of a planet directly from orbit."

 
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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by crutchy on Thursday February 27 2014, @08:49PM

    by crutchy (179) on Thursday February 27 2014, @08:49PM (#8115) Homepage Journal

    that's all they could afford to build using their $400 hammer

    and all the contractors they normally use to build civil space stuff are busy building weapons for the federal reserve... oops i mean federal government

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