Robots have traditionally been roughly humanoid in form, which has some obvious advantages, in that the robots are better able to integrate into a human-designed environment. But there are lots of environments that aren't human designed, and researchers have been experimenting with robotic forms that look more like insects or fish. Now, a team of Swiss researchers has produced a robot that looks like nothing more than a walking circuit board. Despite its small size, though, the robot is able to move by hopping, leaping, or walking, and it can even work in a group to coordinate activities. The team calls its creation Tribot, for reasons that are obvious from its photo above. Tribot looks like a tiny circuit board because that's what it largely is, but there are some significant additions to the circuitry.

Named SALTO and developed in California, the machine stands just about 10 inches tall, but can jump straight up from a crouch to over three feet high. Not only that, the robotic critter-- made with an eye towards someday helping with search and rescue operations-- can execute a parkour-like move and jump off the ground, then off a wall. Duncan Haldane, first author on a study about the new robot and a PhD candidate at University of California, Berkeley, said his team was inspired to make SALTO after talking with first responders at an urban rescue training site. "Our goal was to have a search and rescue robot small enough to not disturb the rubble further, [and] move quickly across the many kinds of rubble produced by collapsed buildings," he said during a teleconference on Monday. "To do that, it has to be able to jump."