The idea behind the whole thing was to create a platform capable of adapting the means of locomotion to the terrain that needs to be navigated, or the mission that is to be performed. But that's a trick, as the machine can reconfigure its appendages to 'achieve eight distinct types of motion.' When you look at it in its default state, it looks like a small box propped on four large wheels. We're told the people behind it looked at how the chukar partridge gamebird 'use the flapping of their wings to give them leverage while running up steep inclines,' and at how 'sea lions use their flippers for different types of locomotion on sea and land.'ĭesign-wise, the robot is nothing out of the ordinary. Like many other great human ideas, the M4 was inspired by the animal world. In this case, though, M4 stands for Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot. Yes, exactly like the carbine used by Western soldiers since the mid-1990s. Officially, the piece of tech is called M4. NASA and JPL had a hand in the thing as well. The team had as leads Mory Gharib, Professor of Aeronautics and Bioinspired Engineering, and Alireza Ramezani, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University.

The real-life Transformer robot is an idea that popped into the heads of researchers from the Caltech Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST). Nicknamed Transformer, it is not only capable of shapeshifting, but can fly, roll, or walk, depending on the need of the moment. As revolutionary as the Mori idea is, it doesn't come even close to another wacky robot we uncovered this week.

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