tiny robot

Engineers at the University of Michigan and UCLA have built a palm-sized frog robot weighing under 100 grams that hops using elastic energy. Twisting a coiled elastic rod stores energy that releases in a sudden snap, and two of these snapping rods propel the robot about three body lengths per second across surfaces such as wood. The work points to new spring-based locomotion for small robots.

A tiny humanoid robot that uses an Android smartphone as its onboard brain is being offered at a price of around $400, making it one of the cheapest humanoid robots available. The design appeals to hobbyists and educators because it repurposes a common phone for computing and vision instead of costly dedicated hardware, lowering the barrier to experimenting with robotics.