gecko

There are a whole range of scenarios, from security- or surveillance-related situations to natural disasters, in which it could be really useful to have a robot that can climb walls. But the idea gets so much traction because it's also just flat-out cool.

Spiderman, meet Gecko Guy. Ronald Fearing and his group at the University of California, Berkeley have engineered an adhesive material so sticky that a person clothed in a suit made of the stuff might actually be able to climb walls like the web-slinging comic book hero. The work was inspired by the gecko, which takes advantage of van der Waals forces—the cumulation of millions of molecular-level attractions—to keep its hair-covered feet stuck to sheer surfaces.

Weve reported on gecko-inspired work before, but Fearings latest achievement is a big step towards getting more of these gecko-gadgets out of the lab and into the world.