(creepy music)
- [Voiceover] Ever wonder
how that creepy cockroach
snuck into your tightly closed cabinet?
Or when you maybe accidentally stepped
on one and it doesn't get squished?
It just sprints away.
UC Berkeley researchers have discovered
the secrets of how cockroaches achieve
those astounding Houdini-like contortions.
Appearing or disappearing out of nowhere.
Able to avert certain death.
(chaotic music)
And they're now using this discovery
to build robots with those
same extraordinary powers.
Putting the American cockroach through
a series of obstacle courses,
the researchers found that
even though its shell,
or exoskeleton, looks stiff,
it's actually malleable,
allowing the roach to flatten itself,
all the way down to just
a quarter of its height.
The experiments show these
roaches can withstand
almost 900 times their body
weight without getting hurt.
That's like an average
person being crushed
by more than 123,000 pounds.
Not only that, even in
their squished state,
the American cockroaches were
still able to run super fast,
nearly 20 times their
body length per second.
Inspired by this awesome skill set,
the researchers built CRAM,
a compressible robot with
articulated mechanisms.
The prototype has a
segmented, pliable shell.
And like the cockroach,
CRAM is able to sprawl out
and run using other parts of
its legs instead of its feet.
Imagine the possibiliites.
Like sending a swarm of cockroach robots
into the tiniest spaces to
find disaster survivors.
So maybe next time you come
across an American cockroach,
instead of thinking
creepy, you'll think cool.
(spirited instrumental music)
