Squirrel Parkour

[ysabetwordsmith]

Berkeley scientists are studying the biomechanical and mental abilities of squirrels.  Anyone who has ever tried to keep squirrels out of a birdfeeder knows they are extremely agile and deviously brilliant.  The idea is to gather inspiration to build better robots.

I have a suspicion this started with, "How do we beat the motherfucking cheetah?"  MIT's mechanical cheetah (really more like a dog, since the spine doesn't bend) is a leading edge of robotics agility.  But if Berkeley can build a squirrelbot, I'm going to call that a win.  <3 science.  :D

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Use a hydraulic gyroscope, like the tanks in ATLA?

Also be sure it has reversing ankles to maximize use of curved claws, like biosquirrels do.

Other climbing critters to use for inspiration:

- Sloths move on the underside of branches

- some birds have a reversible toe (so front-and-back toes can switch between 2:2 to 3:2 as needed.)

- Geckos. Their clingy foot-hairs are really interesting, but beyond my ability to coherently explain right now. (Long day.)

[kengr]

So they are studying fox squirrels to build better faux squirrels?

[dewline]

We are asking for trouble here.

RoboSquirrel Source Data

[margali]

They need to hookup with Mark Rober. He builds squirrel parkour courses in his backyard and talks about the physics of how they move. They could run a trial RoboSquirrel vs PhatGus and her gang.

Google Mark Rober plus Squirrel Obstacle Course. Do NOT eat or drink during first couple you watch.

[siliconshaman]

Occurs to me, if you can get squirrelbots to follow orders, and not be squirrelly too much, they would be very useful in the space construction industry.

[seleneheart]

I continuously marvel at the core strength of squirrels and their gymnastics to get to the bird feeders.