NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who incidentally sponsored my father's migration to the states from England, are always coming up with new uses of technology. Their latest research has produced a rock climbing robot, called LEMUR, which has four legs each with their own claw to attempt footholds. Very similar to the spy bot previously reviewed, but much more hi-tech.
Having done a bit of rock climbing myself, I'm aware of the challenges inherit in gripping to vertical surfaces; I'm not surprised LEMUR currently has to be fed coordinates to climb from foothold to foothold. Luckily when they teach it to climb by itself it won't get vertigo.
In other news, I found this picture related to an earlier article on martial art impact sensors, which looks like a sketch of their prototype. If anyone has more pictures of this, please contact me (tom long tat gmail zot com).
