Watch a jumping robot that could one day leap across the moon

A robot that can jump over 100 times its own height could leap over challenging terrain on the moon and explore the rocky surface more quickly than a wheeled rover, say researchers. Elliot Hawkes at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his colleagues developed a robot just 30 centimetres tall that can leap to a height of 32.9 metres powered by a carbon fibre sprung skeleton. Hawkes says that the maximum jumping height of animals is limited by the work their muscles can produce in a single stroke. But the new robot uses a tiny motor to tension its springs over many rotations. It jumps only when it has stored a large amount of energy.