This little guy is a robotic grasshopper. He was created by the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and it's been dubbed the Air Hopper. It's got four wheels and four legs, allowing it to roll around, walk and jump.
Yeah, this little bot can hop as far as four feet forward and one foot high, which is certainly further and higher than you can say about most robots. With the combo of wheels and legs that it has, this looks to be a precursor to vehicles that can jump over obstacles.
And when I think of that, I imagine hopping over slow moving traffic, which would be awesome. But then when I take that thought a little bit further, I think of traffic accidents involving one car landing on top of another because of a poorly-executed hop. So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sure if this is a good development or a bad one.
Air Hopper via Technabob
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