Biological robots are pretty common for what they’re worth, but this is perhaps one of the cooler ones. It’s a robot that can react similarly to a certain kind of caterpillar, which rolls itself into a loop and can roll and launch itself at incredible speeds. The caterpillar is truly is an example of nature’s engineering, and the robot is a comparable human replica of it. About 10 cm long, made of shape-memory alloy, when electricity is jolted through the robot, the memory metal heats up and pulls the robot into a loop, and propels it forward. In less than 200 milliseconds, the robot can go from standstill to over 50 cm/sec, with over 200 rotations per minute.
Even this, however, cannot compare to the actual thing, however; a caterpillar would respond extremely quickly to stimuli, whereas the robot takes 50 milliseconds after being stimulated by electricity to begin moving.
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