STRIDEs: 1-Gram Robot Walks on the Surface of Water

The photo above shows you two pictures, on the left a water strider insect and on the right a 1-gram robot on the surface of the water.

Water striders insects (aka water skaters) are not swimmers but they can walk on water and now researchers Metin Sitti and Yun Seong Song have built a robot that mimics the water strider’s natural abilities.

Nicked named STRIDEs which stands for Surface Tension Robotic Insect Dynamic Explorer, the water strider robots can walk on shallow water at around 3-4 mm deep and are planned to be used for environmental monitoring via wireless communications.

Things are still in early stages but this technology could be very useful in the future for many tasks.
Read on physorg