Frogbots! Solar-powered, at that!

Dave Hrynkiw
December 15, 2000

I missed the full segment of this story last weeks on "Discovery Channel's @discovery.ca" program, but fortunately, the've put the segment online at their website. I seems that JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories - NASA essentially) is working on a solar-powered, single-footed robot frog. This seems like a GREAT idea for extra-terrestrial planet-surface locomotion. Check out the videos and see for yourself. Additional information at Space.com Even more technical information is here and here, in these Adobe Acrobat files from one of the researchers, Paulo Fiorini. Here's his homepage. And this is his dedicated Frogbot hompage - lots of interesting info!

Oh, and if you scroll to the bottom of the Discovery Channel / EXN page, you'll find a nice video clip of our favorite Roboticist, Mark Tilden. They shot this a few years ago, and I'm glad to see they resurrected it to be on this page.

Read More...

MORE POSTS

June 26, 2012
Original Robosapien Prototype

Well, we're all back from Maker Faire, feelin' pretty groggy but fairly alive (or, perhaps more accurately, undead - something about being in a zombie-like state sounds about right). So to break the recent drought of news posts, we've dug out a treat from the deeper regions of the Solarbotics server archives. This is some […]

October 14, 2009
MakerBEAM

Ok, besides being a conjunction of two things we really love (Make Magazine & BEAM Robotics), it also is an open-source hardware project that is about little "T-Beams". This project is using the "KickStarter" model of sponsorship. Ask for pledges for the projects, and if the minimum is met (and it has - yay!), the […]

July 3, 2013
Wednesday Cool Links: Clocks, Cloudscape...

You know, sometimes it is hard to find a proper tone of voice to write these introductions. So how about I express what I wanted through some interpretive dance? *flails extremities randomly. That would do it, right? Being all multidisciplinary-like, merging art (of flailing) with technology (of flailing), just like our today's links: Twenty two […]

April 6, 2015
Solarbotics and Art Hack II at Alberta C...

Solarbotics has supplied some tech bits and pieces for the recent ART HACK II, an intensive artistic boot camp led by Visiting Artist, Raul Nieves (Blablablab, Practipo Barcelona), where students were building open source the 3D printers.

Solarbotics Ltd Logo
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!

Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.