7 ms·

Engineered jumpers overcome biological limits via work multiplication

72 points by RafelMri 5y ago

josephfung 5y ago
This "behind the paper" write up is a great complement, and also shares more about the actual paper, which is paywalled: https://engineeringcommunity.nature.com/posts/engineered-jumpers-overcome-biological-limits-via-work-multiplication https://engineeringcommunity.nature.com/posts/engineered-jum...
goldenkey 5y ago
Any videos of the experimental highest jumpers?
- swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
  I imagine the landing from a 30m jump is the hard part
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    A parachute, wing, or rotor softens it.
carapace 5y ago
There's a video of it on the linked media piece https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01196-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01196-y It's got four legs bowed like archery bows with radial tendons attached to the bellies of the curved legs and joined in the center, where a line goes vertically from the "feet" of the legs (which are bound together) to the main body of the device (acting as the string of all four bows.) It looks like a four-legged spider doing something kinky with ropes, or perhaps like it's trying to sit on an invisible beach ball (but the line and tendons are in the interior space.) Anyway, when the center line releases the legs straighten out and the whole thing launches into the air like a spring-powered model rocket. It seems that the tendons are the bit that's adding extra stored energy to the jump, as the abstract mentions, "...the jump height of an engineered device can be far greater because its ratcheted or rotary motor can ‘multiply work’ during repeated strokes or rotations." I'm guessing that the "ratchet" is tightening the tendons, winding up the "oomph" before letting it go all at once. (On second thought, the ratchet mechanism must be in the body of the robot, so it's when its reeling in the line that the work of a small motor gets "multiplied" and stored in the legs/tendons/line.) This reminds me of the toy pneumatic rockets that you pump up with a little hand pump and launch. Very similar principle, eh?
- smegsicle 5y ago
  pneumatic rockets that eject water? those are very cool, in case anyone is looking for a summer gift for a kid who likes rockets
  - carapace 5y ago
    Yeah, they're a lot of fun! (And relatively safe: you might get hit in the eye but you won't get burned or start a fire.) You need the water for reaction mass, but water isn't compressible so you need air too to have something to pressurize to store energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_rocket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_rocket My favorite toy rocket is the venerable Matchstick Rocket. You lay a pin alongside a match with the tip of the pin against the head of the match, and then wrap the top half of both in a scrap of aluminum foil. Remove the pin, leaving a hollow nozzle for the gasses to escape. Perch the rocket on a bent-paperclip launch cradle and hold another lit match under the foil-wrapped head to ignite the solid fuel and initiate liftoff. They'll fly a meter or two, once you get the kinks out of the manufacturing process. Ooo! NASA has a page on making them: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/TRC/Rockets/match_rocket.html https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/TRC/Rockets/match_rocket.h...
  - TheJoeMan 5y ago
    As a child my dad and I made a PVC launcher with a quick-release string. Turns out 100% launch success is a little less exciting.
- trhway 5y ago
  It seems that there may be some way to improve [cross]bows here.
ncmncm 5y ago
This is outstanding work. You probably need to consult with arthropods to find a natural analog. Mantis shrimp produce accelerations far beyond the capacity of muscle working in real time. Springtails, too. It was only very recently anyone got a video of a springtail jumping that captured more than one frame of it.
- djmips 5y ago
  Do you have a link or a hint of where to find the springtail video?
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    "Springtail Jumps Off Water and in Super Slow Motion!" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MXeSnWY6DNc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MXeSnWY6DNc It took 73,000 fps to catch the motion of the launch.
    - djmips 4y ago
      Thanks!
AftHurrahWinch 5y ago
Before I watched the video, I tried to imagine what I thought the robot would look like. I was very wrong! Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHXwTa5-DA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHXwTa5-DA I think it's neat that I had bad intuition about the solution to this problem. Albeit, I also had bad intuition about what the word 'jumper' meant in the title. ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jumper_(sweater) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jumper_(sweater)
entropyie 5y ago
Am I the only one who instinctively thought this story was going to be about sweaters? https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/jumper https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/jumper
- layer8 5y ago
  I was thinking of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumper_%28computing%29 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumper_%28computing%29 before I read “biological limits”.
londons_explore 5y ago
There are plenty of biological mechanisms that can build up immense forces over a long time period. The osmotic pressure that plants use to squeeze apart paving slabs on a sidewalk is a good example. There's no reason nature couldn't use such forces to prime a spring for a jumper. It just hasn't happened yet.

72 points by RafelMri 5y ago

This "behind the paper" write up is a great complement, and also shares more about the actual paper, which is paywalled: https://engineeringcommunity.nature.com/posts/engineered-jumpers-overcome-biological-limits-via-work-multiplication https://engineeringcommunity.nature.com/posts/engineered-jum...

goldenkey 5y ago

Any videos of the experimental highest jumpers?

swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
I imagine the landing from a 30m jump is the hard part
- ncmncm 5y ago
  A parachute, wing, or rotor softens it.

carapace 5y ago

There's a video of it on the linked media piece https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01196-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01196-y It's got four legs bowed like archery bows with radial tendons attached to the bellies of the curved legs and joined in the center, where a line goes vertically from the "feet" of the legs (which are bound together) to the main body of the device (acting as the string of all four bows.) It looks like a four-legged spider doing something kinky with ropes, or perhaps like it's trying to sit on an invisible beach ball (but the line and tendons are in the interior space.) Anyway, when the center line releases the legs straighten out and the whole thing launches into the air like a spring-powered model rocket. It seems that the tendons are the bit that's adding extra stored energy to the jump, as the abstract mentions, "...the jump height of an engineered device can be far greater because its ratcheted or rotary motor can ‘multiply work’ during repeated strokes or rotations." I'm guessing that the "ratchet" is tightening the tendons, winding up the "oomph" before letting it go all at once. (On second thought, the ratchet mechanism must be in the body of the robot, so it's when its reeling in the line that the work of a small motor gets "multiplied" and stored in the legs/tendons/line.) This reminds me of the toy pneumatic rockets that you pump up with a little hand pump and launch. Very similar principle, eh?

smegsicle 5y ago
pneumatic rockets that eject water? those are very cool, in case anyone is looking for a summer gift for a kid who likes rockets
- carapace 5y ago
  Yeah, they're a lot of fun! (And relatively safe: you might get hit in the eye but you won't get burned or start a fire.) You need the water for reaction mass, but water isn't compressible so you need air too to have something to pressurize to store energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_rocket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_rocket My favorite toy rocket is the venerable Matchstick Rocket. You lay a pin alongside a match with the tip of the pin against the head of the match, and then wrap the top half of both in a scrap of aluminum foil. Remove the pin, leaving a hollow nozzle for the gasses to escape. Perch the rocket on a bent-paperclip launch cradle and hold another lit match under the foil-wrapped head to ignite the solid fuel and initiate liftoff. They'll fly a meter or two, once you get the kinks out of the manufacturing process. Ooo! NASA has a page on making them: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/TRC/Rockets/match_rocket.html https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/TRC/Rockets/match_rocket.h...
- TheJoeMan 5y ago
  As a child my dad and I made a PVC launcher with a quick-release string. Turns out 100% launch success is a little less exciting.
trhway 5y ago
It seems that there may be some way to improve [cross]bows here.

ncmncm 5y ago

This is outstanding work. You probably need to consult with arthropods to find a natural analog. Mantis shrimp produce accelerations far beyond the capacity of muscle working in real time. Springtails, too. It was only very recently anyone got a video of a springtail jumping that captured more than one frame of it.

djmips 5y ago
Do you have a link or a hint of where to find the springtail video?
- ncmncm 5y ago
  "Springtail Jumps Off Water and in Super Slow Motion!" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MXeSnWY6DNc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MXeSnWY6DNc It took 73,000 fps to catch the motion of the launch.
  - djmips 4y ago
    Thanks!

AftHurrahWinch 5y ago

Before I watched the video, I tried to imagine what I thought the robot would look like. I was very wrong! Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHXwTa5-DA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHXwTa5-DA I think it's neat that I had bad intuition about the solution to this problem. Albeit, I also had bad intuition about what the word 'jumper' meant in the title. ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jumper_(sweater) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jumper_(sweater)

entropyie 5y ago

Am I the only one who instinctively thought this story was going to be about sweaters? https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/jumper https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/jumper

layer8 5y ago
I was thinking of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumper_%28computing%29 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumper_%28computing%29 before I read “biological limits”.

londons_explore 5y ago

There are plenty of biological mechanisms that can build up immense forces over a long time period. The osmotic pressure that plants use to squeeze apart paving slabs on a sidewalk is a good example. There's no reason nature couldn't use such forces to prime a spring for a jumper. It just hasn't happened yet.