Robotic Spider Flic-Flacs Its Way Into Your Worst Nightmares

Arachnophobia is a common fear among humans. So much so that is incomprehensible why would anyone devise a machine that can do the things these devilish creatures can do.

It so happens that the man who discovered the cebrennus rechenbergi spider in 2008, Ingo Rechenberg, is also a bionics professor at TU Berlin. Taking inspiration from the way the African spider goes about its daily life, he created the BionicWheelBot.

The machine sits on six robotic legs. Usually, four of them are used to crawl from here to there, while the other two stand idle. Until something happens, the robot turns into a wheel, and the extra legs turn into things that push the robot around.

For it go get going in this unlikely manner, the robots bends its six legs, three on each left and right sides, so that it turns into a wheel. The legs in the middle tehn fold and extend repeatedly pushing the rolled-up spider off the ground.

Its creator says the robot has the potential to do this forever, as long as its power source holds. Rolling is done faster than walking, and apparently, this configuration also allows it to overcome inclines of up to five percent uphill.

The robot will be presented at the Hannover Messe 2018 this April, as a collaboration between the bionics professor and a team of engineers from Festo, a U.S. based pneumatic and electrical automation technology supplier.

As for the practical applications for the robot, none were detailed. The technology used to make it what it is, however, might have endless uses.