And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:25
class of fast-acting soft robots that can catch live insects in the blink of an eye. They took their inspiration from the sticky catapult tongues of chameleons (cf. creation.com/chameleon), salamanders, and toads. These can rapidly extend up to one and a half body lengths, catching insects within a tenth of a second. They do this by using stored elastic energy which when released allows for fast, high-powered movements.
The robot tongue can expand five times its own length, excelling at
gripping, holding, and manipulating objects at high speed, even holding
objects up to 100 times its weight. Professor Ramses Martinez said these
new prestressed soft robots have several significant advantages over
existing soft robots:
“We believed that if we could fabricate robots capable of performing
such large-amplitude motions at high speed like chameleons, then many
automated tasks could be completed more accurately and in a much faster
way. Conventional robots are usually built using hard and heavy
components that slow down their motion due to inertia. We wanted to
overcome that challenge.”
In taking their inspiration from chameleons, salamanders, and toads,
they are only seeking to replicate what has already been created by the
Master Designer." CMI
