Developed by Associate Professor Kenichi Ohara and a team from Osaka University’s ARAI Lab, the Limb Mechanism Robot (aka ASTERISK) borrows its gait from insects. But it doesn’t just crawl around. When it sees something it needs to pick up, it can use any two of its legs as grippers while the other four remain on the ground. As shown in the video below, this is perfect for picking up smaller, defenseless creatures like stuffed rodents.

The mechanical structure of the legs also allow the ‘bot to crawl on uneven surfaces. In addition, its six legs can be fitted with wheels, so if the robot lies flat to the ground, it can roll under very tight obstacles, much like a skateboard.

Fortunately, all this technology is being developed for good, not evil. The pincers might be used to haul rubble from a disaster site, or to help move a dangerous IED out of the way of soldiers. As long as they don’t figure out a way for robots to digest living creatures and harvest their energy, I think we’re safe for now.

Diehard Doctor Who fans would recognize the Cybermat immediately, and would be super excited to hear that the Bump-N-Go Cybermat is available this Christmas season! For $45, you get the 6 inch-long Cybermat replica that autonomously roams your floors. By autonomously, I mean that every time it smacks its face into something, it turns around. Which, for $45, is probably the best level of autonomous available. Even some small children don’t have that plateau of intelligence! *Small child runs his face into a pole. Small child backs up. Small child runs his face into the pole again. Small child sits down and cries.*

The Bump-N-Go Cybermat is from Series 6 Episode 12 of Doctor Who, and it has some crazy awesome tail swishing action that doesn’t actually affect its movement but does affect its price because it is way cooler when it swishes its tail. Plus, an extra motor is needed, thus the production price is increased. The Bump-N-Go Cybermat is complete with red LEDs on its side, but is incomplete since its mouth is not revealed. You don’t get to see it in the episode, you don’t get to see it in the toy. This is probably just because anything the designers came up with would disappoint – the hype is too much for the Atlas of the Doctor Who World to carry. That’s why said Atlas will hand it off to some unwitting Hercules figure who will end up holding it for a very long time before the unwitting Hercules is able to wit said Atlas back into holding up the world. Couple of screwball knuckleheads – it’s best just to avoid the situation entirely and save ourselves a massive headache.

Like I said, the Bump-N-Go Cybermats are $45 per, and are available from Neatoshop for your buying delight! If you’re looking for more Doctor Who goodness, I’d recommend you check out the Doctor Who Chess Set and the teaser for the new Doctor Who PS3 game.

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The goal of building this strange beast was to demonstrate the carrying capacity and high strength-to-weight ratios that inflatable structures are capable of. Inflatable robots have a lot of potential as they are low-cost, lightweight, extremely powerful, and at the same time safer for humans to interact with.

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It still looks like they’ve got a way to go before the Ant-Roach can actually move smoothy, quietly, or quickly though.

[via Hizook]

The latest HexBug robot looks like a nasty larva, except made out of plastic instead of whatever slimy stuff actual larvae are made of. What makes these things even more creepy is that they have robotic brains inside of them.

The 3.9″ long oversize larva robot slithers around on any smooth surface, with its tail wriggling from side to side. When it sees an object in its way, it automatically changes direction, and keeps on moovin’ and groovin’. Great. This thing is going to be able to avoid my attempts to kill it with Raid. Guess there’s always my shoe.

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These creepy crawlers are great stocking stuffers for kids, assuming they don’t actually leave them in their socks when they put them on. They’re also great for reproducing that scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where he puts that nasty bug in Chekhov’s ear (that scene is way better in German, BTW). Actually, kids, don’t put these in your ears.

You can grab the HexBug Larva here for $12.99 (USD) each. Just don’t buy me any.

So remember when I said that such inventions would soon make their way in real life? Well, ladies and gentlemen, that time is now. The researchers at the Micro-Aviary at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base have been hard at work at fitting walls with super-sensitive motion capture sensors that will be able to track the position of a helicopter or small plane “within about a tenth of an inch.” Talk about precise.

The information from the sensors are then used to create ”very, very small flapping-wing vehicles,” says Greg Parker, who’s a part of the research team.

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There have been no officially released images or photos of the insect drones, although I doubt the military will be making them available anytime soon as they’re bound to be classified stuff.

[via Oh Gizmo!]

The robot is powered by a single battery, but doesn’t use any energy while dormant, so that battery should last a while. The weight of the insect landing on it causes the circuits to connect, which basically gives the robot the fuel it needs to do it’s thing. Unfortunately, it can’t digest the insect like the real version, but give these scientists some time and I’m sure they’ll work that out.

[via Walyou]

The guys at Qualcomm put together this clip featuring a miniature circus, starring insects as the performers. But this isn’t some old flea circus. Nope, this is a high-tech big top, where the bugs perform daring feats to power a smartphone. Sure, it happens to be a Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered smartphone, but I don’t care. It’s still awesome. I mean what was the last time you saw a praying mantis ride a unicycle? Or a tarantula on a treadmill? Never, right?  But enough of my yakkin. Check out the video for yourself.

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Wasn’t that great? The only thing better would have been better would have been to power the phones with Komodo dragons instead of insects, since that might have been more appropriate for the brand. Now I associate Snapdragon smartphones with a bunch of big bugs. Not the perfect message for a technology commercial, eh? Oh well. Still, it’s pretty damned awesome, so I’ll give Qualcomm a break.

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The bot is 10 centimeters long and weighs just 15 grams, so the design definitely helps it to be speedy. The back two legs are passive and the legs are driven by a single motor that delivers a gait frequency of 34 strides per second. It’s a very impressive little ‘bot. Let’s hope it doesn’t escape the lab and reproduce.

[via IEEE Spectrum]

That’s exactly what we’ve got here. This giant dragonfly sculpture measures a whopping 32″ (w) x 28″(l) x 7″ (h). The coolest part is that it’s made completely out of discarded printed circuit boards. Not a single surface of this giant bug – including it’s six stick-legs – isn’t made of electronic part-encrusted circuit boards.

I love how the legs are made of integrated circuits, and those multi-faceted capacitor eyeballs are awesome. This big bug was lovingly crafted by Steve Rodrig of PCB Creations, and is a one-of-a-kind sculpture, perfect for that geek who also has a fondness for insects.

It’s listed right now for $400 (USD) over on Etsy. While you might think that’s a lot to spend on a bunch of old circuit boards, I think it’s actually totally reasonable for all of the work that must have gone onto building this thing.

P.S. Ignore my headline. I think it would be really cool if this thing could fly.

But if your kids love insects, then you might want to buy them this gadget, which lets them suck up bugs and then study them up close and personal. The fly-goodbye gun uses pump-action suction to capture bugs into plastic cylinders, each of which keep your bug prisoners alive long enough to inspect them via a magnifying lens at the end of the tube.

Of course, you can also use it to suck up unwanted pests and let them loose outside (or cut off their air supply and put them out of their buggy misery if you’re feeling cruel). It’ll also sweep up dead bugs you just would rather not touch.

The Fly-Goodbye bug gun is available over at Gizmine for $59.95 (USD).

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Dr. Mohamed Babu of Mysore, India shot these incredible photographs, taken as these unusual ants sipped from colorful piles of sugar water. He says that not only did he end up with red, yellow and blue ants, but some of them drank from multiple drops, creating new colors too.

I love stuff like this. Not only are these photographs incredible, but they capture one of natures incredible creations, and teach us a thing or two about science.

We better not let the guys at ColorWare hear about this, or else they’ll be selling custom-colored ants for $500 each. Although if you send in your own ants, they might provide a small discount.

[DailyMail via NotCot via Colossal Art + Design]

Hector was developed by the University of Bielefeld and Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden. The robot was a project to see how future ‘bots could explore and navigate autonomously. Hector is supposed to be a cognitive robot and weighs about 26 pounds. Thanks to its 20 joints and robust exoskeleton, it could probably give Spider-Man a run for his money.

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From the looks of the video, they’ve only got one leg working so far, but someday autonomous swarms of these robots could be used to explore other planets like Mars, but that’s still a few years off.

[via Plastic Pals]

It whacks up against the side of the glass jar and sounds like a real butterfly trying to break out. This thing is really strange, but my daughter would totally love it. She is always putting something in a box or plastic bag to keep “forever” but for some reason her new pets never seem to wake up after a night in the bag.

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I could get her this butterfly thing and not have to try and remember to let the captured bugs and frogs escape when she isn’t looking. You can get four different butterfly styles including a pink morpho, blue morpho, monarch, or a yellow swallowtail. Only the pink morpho is in stock right now with the others about three weeks out. Each of the jars will cost you $19.99.

The Skitterbot looks a lot like beetle to me with six legs and a five-function remote control. That remote control will let the bug move forward, back, left, and right however the driver wants. The Skitterbot is crazy fast for a small R/C toy. It can scuttle along at a foot per second.

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The bug itself charges from a USB connector that appears to be integrated with the remote control, which is common for this type of small RC toy. A 30-minute charge will give you 15-minutes of playtime. That practically guarantees that my kids will crash them into the walls and each other.

Skitterbots are available over on Amazon for $26.99 (USD) each.

Thankfully, these nasty many-legged creatures aren’t real. In fact, they’re digitally-projected images. Glowing Pathfinder Bugs was created by Anthony Rowe and Squidsoup. The interactive display lets you manipulate the sand to unearth insect colonies, then let a virtual bug crawl into your hand. it’ll follow your movements once you pick one up.

Here’s a video clip showing off the little glowing buggers in action:

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Weird. Cool, but weird.

[via Core77]

If that isn’t enough to give you arachnophobia, the spider comes complete with egg missiles and drones. Ever since I first discovered Spider-Man, I’ve had a weakness for spiders, so it doesn’t particularly creep me out.

What’s really amazing about this build is the amount of detail that went into it. It starts to make sense when you take a look at it closely, but it’s only then that you see what kinds of bricks were used to make this thing. Even so, it’s kind of amazing how un-LEGO-like this build looks.

[via Brothers Brick]

…because his enemy wasn’t real. Whoa. That was Zen-like.

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Don’t fear for the insect folks, it was released into the wild after the enlightening encounter, hungry but wiser than ever before.

[via Neatorama]

This crazy thing could actually be the biggest fly you’ll see this year. Turns out this mammoth-sized bug was created by the guys over at Plunge Productions for a recent show on UK channel T4 called Red Bull Rivals.

The massive fly is actually a Red Bull Flugtag vehicle, which means that’s it’s designed to be plunged off of a cliff in a futile attempt to fly through the air.

As a matter of fact, the fly was eventually plunged into the drink for the recent Red Bull Flugtag in Marseille, France. Here’s an annoying little video clip from the show called “Fly School Musical” for your viewing pleasure…

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While the white guy rapping in the video clip isn’t nearly as cool as the fly itself, at least you get to see the giant bug fly off the ramp in a brief cameo at the end.

It’s official – flies cannot swim.

Designer Chico Bicalho’s MxyKikker crawler is my personal favorite, what with its dozen or so spinny elbow macaroni looking legs which help it move along your floor. Each of these unique creations has a slightly different way of ambling around, but they all are about as whimsical as can be.

Here’s a brief video clip showing off MxyKikker and his pal Bonga in action…

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You can find these guys, along with Kikkerland’s entire collection of creepy, crawly automatons over at their online shop. Prices range from $6 to $40 (USD), depending on the size and mechanical complexity of the critter you select.

The pair of dragonflies use a solar-powered motor and a mechanical wire rig to make their wings beat. And while these dragonflies don’t actually fly anywhere, I think that’s a good thing. Have you ever tried to get a good look at a dragonfly up close and personal? They don’t like to stick around for long. Here’s a video clip of the solar dragonflies in action…

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You can catch the Tamiya solar dragonfly kit over at Amazon for about $36 (USD).