SCI-FI NIGHTMARE? THESE INSECT-INSPIRED MICRO-ROBOTS ARE THE SMALLEST, LIGHTEST, AND FASTEST EVER BUILT
Hey everyone, I'm ex strange. This is your crazy Strange News episode forty seven news bite. Man extremely irritated when police show up to examine his vintage nuclear missile. A Washington man was trying to do a good deed when a bomb squad showed up as his door. And that's not even the weirdest part of this story. In a press release, police in Bellevue, Washington said they sent their explosive explosives experts out to the home of a local resident after hearing from the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. According to folks there, someone in the town had called them wanting to donate an item that had belonged to his deceased neighbor. That item, Bellevue police soon learned, turned out to be a heavily rusted Douglas Air dash to Genie, a Cold War era rocket that was built to carry the type of one point five kiloton nuclear warheads that are per the Pima Air and Space Museum, capable of blasting a bomber to bits from one thousand feet away. Luckily, the missile, which the Washington resident took ownership of, instored in his own garage after finding it in the home of his late neighbor, who had purchased it years prior in an estate sale, was inert. Somewhat more incredibly, the police returned the item to the unnamed man's care because apparently the military didn't want it back. Although it seems the man still plants to donate the rocket to some museum, it's unclear whether it will be the one in Ohio. That's because, as the Washington resident told the BBC, he was extremely irritated that its representatives had called the local police without even warning him. It sounds like the local law manner ticked off as well, with a Bellevue police spokesperson telling the British outlet that our bomb squad member asked me why we released a news release on a rusted piece of metal. In a separate interview with The New York Times, the officer said that it wasn't all that unusual to get calls about smaller military artifacts, given the town's proximity to the Joint Base Lewis McCord. All the same, finding a nuclear missile in the hands of a local resident was fairly rare, and Tyler said it was the first time he'd heard of such a thing in the eighteen years he'd been working for the Bellevue Peace and we think it's going to be a long, long time before we get another call like this again, the department said in a x formerly Twitter post that references Elton John's classic song Rocketman. All Right up next, Sci Fi Nightmare. These insect inspired micro robots are the smallest, lightest, and fastest ever built. Engineers from Washington State University have created the smallest, lightest, and fastest micro robots ever. Inspired by actual mini bugs and water striders, The insect like micro robots could one day be used for artificial pollination, search and rescue missions, remote environmental monitoring, microfabrication, or even robotic assisted surgery. The waster strider inspired micro robot weighs only fifty five milligrams, while the mini bug inspired robot clocks in at a poultry eight milligrams, perhaps equally impressive. Both can move at about six millimeters a second. A typical ant weighs about five milligrams and can move at nearly a meter per second. While extremely slow compared to real life insects, this is significantly faster than other micro robots based on the same technology that is fast compared to other micro robots at this scale, although it still lags behind their biological relatives, said Connored Trigstad, a PhD student in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and lead author of the published work and Avid fly Fishermen. He points out that real water striders move using an efficient rowing motion, while his micro robot strider is currently limited to a less efficient flat flapping motion. There's photos of these. What they're doing is comparing it to a quarter, the smaller ones about half the size of a quarter, and the larger ones about the size of a quarter. Of course, per usual, the links will be in the show notes to these articles so you'll be able to check it out. The key technology driving the locomotion of these micro robots are the miniaturized actuators that weigh less than a milligram each. Specifically, they don't have moving joints, gears, or hinges like one would typically find in a mechanical moving device. Instead, these microactuators are made from something called shape metal alloy or SMA that changes shape when its temperature changes. The result is an extremely small, yet mechanically sound machine that can propel the micro robots at these previously unattainable speeds. They're very mechanically sound, says trig Stad of these shape memory alloy microactual actuators. The development of the very lightweight actuator opens up new realms in micro robotics. Although SMAs are already in use in larger mechanical devices, they typically move too slowly for things like locomotion. However, the actuators used in these micro robots are extremely small, measuring about one one thousandth of an inch in diameter. This small size allows them to be rapidly heated and cooled down by applying an electric current, resulting in a mechanical insect that can flap its fins or move its legs up to forty times per second. That's actually, that's super cool. The unique SMA actuators also have other advantages. First, they can lift up to one hundred and fifty times their own weight. Second, they're extremely energy efficient, as the electric current needed to drive their movements is significantly less than would be needed to drive a similar motor that uses traditional joints and gears. The SMA system requires a lot less sophisticated systems to power them. He explains in their published work, which appears in the proceedings of the I E e E. Robotics and Automation Societies International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. The engineers say they would like to create a water strider that moves across the top of the water as well as just beneath the surface, just like the real thing. They also say they would like to look into ways to power the device that doesn't require them to be tethered to a power supply. Options include tiny batteries as well as something called catalytic combustion. While these micro robots are still in development, the engineer say they could one day have several practical applications. These include, but are not limited to, uses in artificial pollination, search and rescue missions, remote environmental monitor monitoring, microfabrication, or even robotic assisted surgery. Based on their appearance, they will also likely create at least one writer's sci fi inspired nightmare. So very cool and I also see them, no doubt. I mean, we already know the military and even other governments have been working on you know, drones that mimic like dragonflies, you know, small birds, things like this, so totally equipped with cameras. So I mean, imagine these things, you know, smaller than a quarter a house fly. Could you imagine you could? I mean for intelligence gathering, and you know that's that's totally scary as well. You can be spied upon, you know, and not even really recognize it. So something to think about. A couple of cool stories for you. Keep you going. Please five star, rate in review, subscribe and tell a friend I've been extrange and I am out of here.