This Robot Flies Like A Bird
Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a motherfucking robot.
Markus Fischer and his team at Festo, who do all sorts of sweet shit with innovative electronics and bionics, have created a first of it’s kind. Dubbed the Smartbird, this modern marvel modeled on a seagull only weighs 450 grams. For Americans, that’s less than a pound. The smartbird has a two-meter wingspan, or six and a half feet, and is about the length of my mother, or about five feet long.
It’s body is made of carbon fibers, with a little motor in place of a gastric system and connected gears to work the wings. In flight, it looks absolutely spectacular.
Fischer presented the Smartbird in a 6-minute TED talk, which you can view here. Check around the two-minute mark to see the mechanical wonder take flight.
Tags: robots, technology, TED, video
