March of the sandbots

IEEE Spectrum
Issue April 2009
Pages 26 onwards

Until now many robots have been created which can move efficiently on or in many different surfaces: water, climbing, roads, etc. But none is able to move efficiently on all, nor any one is able to move on sand.

Even our vehicles are not able to move well on surfaces which haven't been paved, imagine automated robots.

In 2001 some robots were sent for the rescue work at World Trade Centre, and in no time they were not able to continue due to the tough surface conditions. In 2006 some robots were sent to a rescue mission in a collapsed mine... they made it 700 meters until they were totally stucked in mud. Thus it is required to get robots to move efficiently on various different tough surface conditions.

The team of researchers authoring this article made a robot SandBot which is 6 legged with some sort of flippers that turn to give the forward movement. They are testing movement on sand. But sand does not yet have a good mechanical model. Thus they have been studying the movement of beings such as lizards, crabs and snakes to imitate their skills.

We are also looking below ground inspiration. Using high speed X-rays, we are now studyng lizards called sandfish that can burrow into sand in the blink of an eye and then "swim" through the material underground... With nature as our guiid, we expect that robots will soon master some incredible new abilities.

El Hombre de Villa Tevere. Chapter XII.

St. Josemaria is the Father of a large family, Opus Dei, the best place to live and the best place to die. He would always remind his children to have details of affection with one another, and would preach it with example, noticing when people were not feeling well even if they didn't say it.

A fellow of the Roman College, Illanes, was with fever just by Christmas time; so that he wouldn't miss the happiness of the festivities, he asked the administration to make a mini-Christmas tree with chocolate decorations and he himself brought a mall child-Jesus for his room.

He had attempted three times along with his sons, to buy a piano for the Roman College, but each time when they had saved enough money, they had to buy somehting more important, thus they "ate 3 pianos". When finally they bought it, he suggested to gift it to his daughters, and even before finishing the sentence, they all said "YES".

When visiting his daughters in Germany he realized they were very badly economically and didn't have a washing machine (they had to do a lot of washing for many people). Before he went back to Rome, he made sure (he had it bought) they had a washing machine and other few useful tools.

In this family there are no levels or hierarchies. If there are any governors or bishops, when they reach home, they remove all their stuff, put it in a drawer and are the same at home.

The directors of this family are there to serve, and when they stop being directors, they go back to be one more. Encarnita Ortega had been in the central governement for over 20 years, and when she went back to spain, the Father told her to go back to serve and to teach with example.

Whenever some of his children would die, he would be very deeply moved, he loved them all the same but would certainly be more moved by the dead of those he had been living with for a longer period of time.

When Salvador Canals died he was really destroyed. He knew he was about to die but had to go out of town, before leaving, he went to visit him and made sure of getting him a box of sweets he knew Salvador liked a lot. St. Josemaria didn't remember the name, made the effort to find out and had them bought. The box was too small and got a bigger one. He was really enjoying when seeing Salvador delighted with the sweets.

When Wladimiro Vince died in a place accident, three other people of the Work went to the island where the accident had been. While relatives of the otehr victims couldn't get close to them because of not being able to bear the fould smell, the members of the Work did it... The Work si the best family, best to live and best to die.