Hasta La Gadget!

When I was growing up, one of my favorite memories was that of tiny fireflies buzzing about my backyard in the Summer evenings. But for many years of my adult life, I ended up living places where there were none of the luminescent insects. Only recently have I started seeing them again, but certainly not in the quantity I used to see them in my childhood. While I’m not likely to hang this lightning bug lighting fixture in my own bedroom, it looks like it would be a wonderful addition to any kid’s room.

This ceiling-mounted light is made up of green plastic leaves, with little LED illuminated fireflies hanging out on them. The illuminated bugs twinkle and shimmer as your kids look up to the ceiling and drift off to sleep. All told, it’s got 7 light-up bugs, and can be turned on and off with the included remote control.

As an added bonus, the whole thing runs on battery power, so you don’t need to worry about having electrical wiring done, and you could hang multiples all over your ceiling if you want. The Firefly lighting fixture sells for $34.99 (USD) over at ThinkGeek, and it’s the next best thing to seeing actual fireflies in your backyard.

Bugs are creepy. You don’t need to be an entomophobe to empathize with that sentiment. But bugs are also inspiring — to researchers in China, that is. Taking a cue from nature, a team of engineers from the country’s School of Chemical Engineering and Technology have devised a microbot weighing just 0.02 lbs (11 grams) that can repeatedly jump across the surface of water without tanking. How’d they do it? Well, by using a highly repellent foam coating, the strider-like bot’s legs are able to stay afloat with every 5.5 inch (14 cm) leap it makes, buffering the force that would normally plunge it below the H20. The creation of this hydrophobic mini-insectoborg isn’t exactly the first of its kind, other aquatic gliders have come before, but this itty bitty fella’s the first to successfully and repeatedly hop along an aqueous top. Unfortunately, there’s no video demo for you to feast your eyes upon, so you’ll just have to take our word for it.

Continue reading Chinese microbot walks on water, skims the surface of insect-inspired design

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Chinese microbot walks on water, skims the surface of insect-inspired design originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jul 2012 02:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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