full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Robert Full: Robots inspired by cockroach ingenuity

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(Laughter)

This is a death's head cockroach. This is an amircaen cockroach you think you don't have in your kecthin. This is an eight-legged scorpion, six-legged ant, forty-four-legged centipede. Now, I said all these animals are sort of wirokng like pogo sctiks — they're bouncing along as they move. And you can see that in this gsoht crab, from the beaches of Panama and North Carolina. It goes up to four meters per second when it runs. It actually leaps into the air, and has aerial phases when it does it, like a horse, and you'll see it's boincung here. What we dieecrosvd is whether you look at the leg of a human like rcahird, or a cockroach, or a crab, or a kagarono, the relative leg stiffness of that spring is the same for everything we've seen so far. Now, what good are springy legs then? What can they do? Well, we wtnaed to see if they allowed the animals to have greater stability and maneuverability. So, we bluit a terrain that had obstacles three times the hip height of the animals that we're looking at. And we were certain they couldn't do this. And here's what they did. The animal ran over it and it didn't even slow down! It didn't decrease its preferred speed at all. We couldn't believe that it could do this. It said to us that if you could build a robot with very simple, springy legs, you could make it as maneuverable as any that's ever been built.

Open Cloze


(Laughter)

This is a death's head cockroach. This is an ________ cockroach you think you don't have in your _______. This is an eight-legged scorpion, six-legged ant, forty-four-legged centipede. Now, I said all these animals are sort of _______ like pogo ______ — they're bouncing along as they move. And you can see that in this _____ crab, from the beaches of Panama and North Carolina. It goes up to four meters per second when it runs. It actually leaps into the air, and has aerial phases when it does it, like a horse, and you'll see it's ________ here. What we __________ is whether you look at the leg of a human like _______, or a cockroach, or a crab, or a ________, the relative leg stiffness of that spring is the same for everything we've seen so far. Now, what good are springy legs then? What can they do? Well, we ______ to see if they allowed the animals to have greater stability and maneuverability. So, we _____ a terrain that had obstacles three times the hip height of the animals that we're looking at. And we were certain they couldn't do this. And here's what they did. The animal ran over it and it didn't even slow down! It didn't decrease its preferred speed at all. We couldn't believe that it could do this. It said to us that if you could build a robot with very simple, springy legs, you could make it as maneuverable as any that's ever been built.

Solution


  1. bouncing
  2. ghost
  3. kitchen
  4. sticks
  5. working
  6. wanted
  7. discovered
  8. american
  9. richard
  10. built
  11. kangaroo

Original Text


(Laughter)

This is a death's head cockroach. This is an American cockroach you think you don't have in your kitchen. This is an eight-legged scorpion, six-legged ant, forty-four-legged centipede. Now, I said all these animals are sort of working like pogo sticks — they're bouncing along as they move. And you can see that in this ghost crab, from the beaches of Panama and North Carolina. It goes up to four meters per second when it runs. It actually leaps into the air, and has aerial phases when it does it, like a horse, and you'll see it's bouncing here. What we discovered is whether you look at the leg of a human like Richard, or a cockroach, or a crab, or a kangaroo, the relative leg stiffness of that spring is the same for everything we've seen so far. Now, what good are springy legs then? What can they do? Well, we wanted to see if they allowed the animals to have greater stability and maneuverability. So, we built a terrain that had obstacles three times the hip height of the animals that we're looking at. And we were certain they couldn't do this. And here's what they did. The animal ran over it and it didn't even slow down! It didn't decrease its preferred speed at all. We couldn't believe that it could do this. It said to us that if you could build a robot with very simple, springy legs, you could make it as maneuverable as any that's ever been built.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
springy legs 3
evolution works 2
pogo stick 2
animals moving 2
human technologies 2
shape deposition 2
named sprawl 2
graduate student 2
thesis project 2
bulldozer version 2
vertical surface 2
tiny hairs 2
split ends 2
individual hair 2


Important Words


  1. aerial
  2. air
  3. allowed
  4. american
  5. animal
  6. animals
  7. ant
  8. beaches
  9. bouncing
  10. build
  11. built
  12. carolina
  13. centipede
  14. cockroach
  15. crab
  16. decrease
  17. discovered
  18. ghost
  19. good
  20. greater
  21. head
  22. height
  23. hip
  24. horse
  25. human
  26. kangaroo
  27. kitchen
  28. laughter
  29. leaps
  30. leg
  31. legs
  32. maneuverability
  33. maneuverable
  34. meters
  35. move
  36. north
  37. obstacles
  38. panama
  39. phases
  40. pogo
  41. preferred
  42. ran
  43. relative
  44. richard
  45. robot
  46. runs
  47. scorpion
  48. simple
  49. slow
  50. sort
  51. speed
  52. spring
  53. springy
  54. stability
  55. sticks
  56. stiffness
  57. terrain
  58. times
  59. wanted
  60. working