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ZURICH — Much like New Year's Eve has a tendency to be an underwhelming holiday, remote control cars have always been a disappointing toy for me.
The ones I played with as a kid had so many design flaws. Their battery life was short. They always ended up flipped on their side and had to be manually righted, and their range was limited by their radio signal.
A new robot, developed by Disney Research Zurich and ETH, puts all childhood remote control cars to shame.
Aptly named VertiGo, the bot can climb walls, transitioning pretty seamlessly from horizontal ground to vertical surfaces with startling ease.
A video put out by DisneyResearchHub demonstrates the invention's capabilities, and they are fantastic.
According to the Disney Research website, VertiGo has two tiltable propellers that give the gadget enough thrust to get onto the wall and stay on it, even navigating over a less-than-smooth surface like masonry or stone. The ability to go from ground to a wall and vise versa, "Vertigo extends the ability of robots to travel through urban and indoor environments," the website says.
Add "robot making" onto the list of reasons why Disney is awesome.
Yesterday's HYST?
