www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kgXWUEk-lM

Dr. Amir Shapiros lab at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel has been hard at work developing wall climbing robots that will soon be able to peep at you or I whilst changing.

First, a magnetic climber that has compliant magnetic wheels and is capable to climb on ferromagnetic surfaces. This robot can be used for inspection of ship hull or bridges. Second, is a Snail inspired wall climbing robot capable of climbing on non metallic surfaces using hot melt glue. The robot secretes the adhesive at the front and peels off the track from the wall at the bottom leaving a trail behind just like the snail does. Third, is a robot that uses sticky wheels in order to attach itself to the wall. It simply has 3Ms sticky tape on the wheels. It can climb on smooth surfaces like glass. Fourth, is a four legged wall climbing robot for climbing on rough surfaces. It has 12 claws made of fishing hooks mounted on each footpad, and it climbs like cat or other rodents.

The robots simply mimic various animals like the snail (hot glue) and the rodent (clawed robot). Why are we wasting time trying to mimic animals when there are perfectly good animals just lying around to be exploited! I can envision a world where a skateboard has four to eight rodents stapled underneath it, or perhaps a mountain climber launching a pillowcase filled with snails into traffic for his own sadistic pleasure. Despite the last example having no real merit, I for one have to applaud the hard working scientists in Israel. Sometimes we take the complicated/expensive route to solve simple problems when there is good science that can be done by taking a walk through staples and picking up a hot-glue gun and some 3M tape. After writing this I plan on going to Home Depot and using an old refrigerator box for my own commercial space program.