From sea to space, this robot is on a roll

While working at NASA in 2003, Dr. Robert Ambrose, director of the Robotics and Automation Design Lab (RAD Lab), designed a robot with no fixed top or bottom. A perfect sphere, the RoboBall could not flip over, and its shape promised access to places wheeled or legged machines could not reach -- from the deepest lunar crater to the uneven sands of a beach. Two of his students built the first prototype, but then Ambrose shelved the idea to focus on drivable rovers for astronauts. When Ambrose arrived at Texas A&M University in 2021, he saw a chance to reignite his idea. With funding from the Chancellor's Research Initiative and Governor's University Research Initiative, Ambrose brought RoboBall back to life.