Geckos have some amazing attributes which are now being translated into robotics. Because the gecko’s amazing abilities to climb vertically, a new technology has been implemented to mimic geckos.

The strength of the geckos climbing ability in robotics may actually be used to save people from burning buildings in emergency response, pick up 100 times the weight of an outside object as well as provide new alternatives to carrying loads in industrial and construction settings.

The idea is to apply special adhesives to support footing similar to that of the gecko which can support up to 100 times their weight.

What is truly fantastic is when the bot is loaded up with weight, there are spikes to support the bot on other specific points. The process works as such: “the pressure bends the spikes on the bottom of the robot’s feet and actually boosts their stickiness. When the robot lifts its foot to move, the spikes unfold and straighten out again. The key factor is that when one foot moves, the others remain firmly in place, supporting the load without a problem” as stated by Elliot Hawkes who built the bot using a tweezers and a microscope.

The bot has a special adhesive on its footing which helps to allow the bot weighing 9 milligrams can carry more than a kilogram while it climbs.

There is a report of another bot in the lab which is able to carry 2000 times its own weight which weighs in at 12 grams to which David Christensen described as, ” [a] feat akin to a human pulling around a blue whale].”