Robotic turtles can be used to detect landmines in the desert

WHEN it comes to detecting landmines, being slow is an advantage. Swarms of robotic sea turtles teaching themselves to crawl in the Arizona desert could one day be used to help clear landmines in war zones. The military already has minesweeping robots, but their bulk makes them costly and difficult to deploy – something the turtle bots could help resolve. The robotic turtles, which are about the size of a small drone, are laser-cut from two sheets of cardboard before being folded together origami-style and fitted with an inexpensive computer chip and motors that move their fins. Each robot only takes 2 to 3 hours to put together and costs around $80, so losing one in a landmine blast isn't necessarily a huge setback, says Heni Ben Amor, joint leader of the project at Arizona State University.