| Robosnail |
| While gathering water striders from the wild for our studies, we indavertently captured a few water snails. Curiosity about their means of locomotion led us to begin the Robosnail project. Snails have 3 modes of locomotion on solid surfaces: forward unduating motion, backward undulating motion, and galloping. |
| Robosnail 1 was built using the principle that a membrane undulating over a solid surface will push fluid through a thin gap in between. As the membrane undulates backwards, the resultant force on the membrane (in this case, the snail's foot) pushes the snail forward. We later found that most snails move in a slightly different way. However, there are a few species that use a method of locomotion similar to that of Robosnail 1, and in any case, Robosnail 1 demonstrates a valid method of locomotion. (See videos) |
videos of Robosnail 1 |
| The next Robosnail will imitate the motion of a land snail using foward undulating movements. When a land snail moves, it periodically lifts up a small kink from the rear of its foot, which travels forward in regular undulations (see image) |