Robot snake 'Uncle Sam' now climbs trees (w/ Video)

Uncle Sam, Carnegie Mellon's latest robotic snake, has been taught to climb trees. The snake is the newest version of "modsnake" created by the Biorobotics Laboratory at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The snake's movements are biomimetic, mimicking movements of real snakes including side-winding, wiggling and rolling. Now the snake robot can also wrap itself around a tree trunk and climb vertically up the outside of the tree. An earlier version has previously been demonstrated climbing vertically inside pipes.