At first glance I thought that DASH just looked like a kid’s science fair project, but in fact it is made by a hand full of engineers at UC Berkeley. The differences between DASH and other robots are as follow. DASH is partially designed so that it can run straight at 1.5 meters per second. It can climb up obstacles twice its height. It can fall from a multistory building and survive completely undamaged. And if that wasn’t enough for you, it can be constructed for under $50 from parts found at your local RadioShack. Is it Superman? No! It’s just a motorized cardboard cockroach, but it could one day be the Superman of cockroaches. The creators of this robot have high expectations for the descendants of DASH. Perhaps these little critters will be the robots that take over our world.

[Robots]

DASH is a UC Berkeley-designed cockroach-inspired robot. Just like the real insects, this one is resilient. Almost indestructible. The 10-cm long DASH(Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod) weighs only 16 grams and can run 15 times its body length per second.

A flexible design allows it to survive nearly anything, including a drop eight stories above the ground. It’s actually made of what’s basically laminated cardboard, which means it’s cheap to build.

[Gizmodo]