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Sand Flea Jumping Robot

Boston Dynamics · 15.9M views · 2012-03-27 · 1:09

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Overview

A short Boston Dynamics clip of the Sand Flea, an 11-pound RC-car-style robot that can jump about 30 feet into the air. An onboard stabilization system keeps it oriented in flight and for landings.

On Hacker News

Brought up as a favorite and as an inspiration for small, cheap jumping robots for obstacle crossing and planetary exploration.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2013–2024

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What people said

icebraining · 2016-03 · Recommendation

Have you seen the robots they developed? Reducing it to "moving from point A to B" is misleading, in my opinion, even if technically true. They essentially developed machines that could move in difficult terrains, often where humans themselves couldn't. My favorite is the Sand Flea, a small car which can jump 9 meters (30-feet) into the air: [VIDEO]

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iamshs · 2013-12 · Recommendation

Aha, Boston Dynamics has such wild repertoire of robots. Well done. Forget Big Dog, I like this robot a lot: [VIDEO] Maps, Self-Driving car, robots and a high quality analytics team. On top of that, robotic team comprises of various reputed groups with talented well regarded individuals. I look forward to the future. Also, how much disparity will arise in quality of living between North America and various Asian countries, or even Europe.

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Teever · 2024-11 · Reference

I'm not sure about that specifically, I've only taken an intro to orbital mechanics class so esoteric orbital maneuvers are a bit beyond me but I understand that in some cases it is possible. I would imagine that one technique that we have yet to try is putting fuel depots in long distance places to facilitate the execution of these manuevers. With that said what I had in mind when I wrote my comment wasn't using one rocket to launch a 100 probes to different solar bodies but instead to launch 100 probes to a single body in one go. I envision a time where we'll deploy massive constellations of remote sensing satellites, like mini-star link constellations for each solar body be it a moon or planet so that we can get real-time data across the whole body instead of having to stitch together pieces of data from one probe. Like Starlink these constellations will be able to relay data between the nodes should they lose line of sight with Earth and will be able to relay data to other constellations orbiting other nearby solar bodies to get the data to Earth if the whole constellation is blocked.[0] I could see a near future where we start sending these Starlink like communications/remote sensing craft at the same time we send craft designed to pepper the surface of a body with multiple rovers and stationary probes to survey the surface of planets and again relay the data they collect between themselves and the constellations above. It would be cool to see terrestrial bodies explored

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Sources

Video by Boston Dynamics, played through YouTube.

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