Beware the dreaded crab-bot - Six-legged 'sandbot' walks on sand

MSNBC - February 10 2009, by Eric Bland

Crabs make walking on sand look so easy. It's a simple motion that has so far baffled scientists who have unsuccessfully tried to recreate the movement in legged robots.

Now scientists from Georgia Tech have created the SandBot, the first legged robot that can scurry across sundry sandy surfaces.

"We are very interested in why animals can so effortlessly run across all sorts of natural terrain," said Chen Li, a student at Georgia Tech and the lead author of the paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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