Left-Right: Stickybot (Mark Cutkosky, Stanford University) and Tokay Gecko (Poly-PEDAL Lab, UCB)
Photo by: Pauline Jennings
Studying the amazing hairy toes of geckos has provided biological inspiration for the design of the first Lego robot to climb on smooth surfaces, named Stickybot. The Poly-PEDAL Lab at UC Berkeley studies the Performance, Energetics and Dynamics of Animal Locomotion. Directed by Robert Full, the lab explores the remarkable capabilities of many-footed animals (Poly-). Full's research has provided biological inspiration for the design of multi-legged robots, novel adhesives, artificial muscles and computer animations.