Next-generation cockroach-inspired robot is small but mighty

This itsy-bitsy robot can't climb up the waterspout yet but it can run, jump, carry heavy payloads and turn on a dime. Dubbed HAMR-JR, this microrobot developed by researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, is a half-scale version of the cockroach-inspired Harvard Ambulatory Microrobot or HAMR. About the size of a penny, HAMR-JR can perform almost all of the feats of its larger-scale predecessor, making it one of the most dexterous microrobots to date. "Most robots at this scale are pretty simple and only demonstrate basic mobility," said Kaushik Jayaram, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and the Wyss Institute, and first author of the paper. "We have shown that you don't have to compromise dexterity or control for size."