The kid and I both exclaimed WHOA at the same time when we saw this jumping Sand Flea robot make its second jump. From Boston Dynamics:
Sand Flea is an 11-lb robot with one trick up its sleeve: Normally it drives like an RC car, but when it needs to it can jump 30 feet into the air. An onboard stabilization system keeps it oriented during flight to improve the view from the video uplink and to control landings. Current development of Sand Flea is funded by the The US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force.
Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics firm who made the BigDog Quadruped Robot in 2008, and has partnered with DARPA to fund many of their robots, including this one. They also recently made news with their collaboration on a robotic cheetah.
via @jcn.
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