Researchers at Northwestern University are definitely not helping prevent the robot apocalypse with their latest invention: The smallest remote-controlled robot in the world. Measuring half a millimeter wide and about 0.02 inches across, and weighing next to nothing, it’s so small you literally can’t feel it crawling on you.
They were able to make it so small because it doesn’t require a battery or a connected power source. Instead, it uses heat to move thanks to its shape-memory alloy coating. When heated, the legs straighten, and when they cool, they bend again, propelling it in a sideways motion like a crab. It isn’t the fastest robot out there, it can only move about half its body length each second, but its size makes it stealthy.
And to make it that much worse, they’re saying it’s a crab, but we all know what creature it really looks like.
