Bioinspired Robotics and Computing
David Daniel Cox
Cengiz Pehlevan
Radhika Nagpal
Demba Ba
A cockroach-inspired robot
If you’ve ever tried to kill an interloping cockroach, you’ve probably noticed two things: they’re fast and nearly invincible. While those features make roaches terrifying to most people, it’s a source of bioinspiration for roboticists at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).
From drinking straws to robots
At the beginning of the decade, George Whitesides helped rewrite the rules of what a machine could be with the development of biologically inspired “soft robots.” Now he’s poised to rewrite them again, with help from some plastic drinking straws.