Veritasium - 2022-08-31
This tiny robot can jump higher than anything else in the world. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. Huge thanks to Dr. Elliot Hawkes and the rest of the group - Charles Xiao, Chris Keeley, Dr. Morgan Pope, and Dr. Günter Niemeyer - for having us at UCSB and showing us their high-flying jumper. This work was partially supported by an Early Career Faculty Grant from NASA’s Space Technology Research Grants Program. ▀▀▀ References: Hawkes, E.W., Xiao, C., Peloquin, R., Keeley, C., Begley, M.R., Pope, M.T., & Niemeyer, G. (2022). Engineered jumpers overcome biological limits via work multiplication. Nature, 604, 657-661. – https://rdcu.be/cMePc https://ve42.co/Hawkes2022 Fernandez, S. (2022). Hitting New Heights. The Current, UC Santa Barbara. – https://ve42.co/Fernandez2022 Bushwick, S. (2022). Record-Breaking Jumping Robot Can Leap a 10-Story Building. Engineering, Scientific American. – https://ve42.co/Bushwick2022 Mack, E. (2022). This Robot Can Leap Nine Stories in One Jump, Will Go Even Higher on Moon. Science, CNET. – https://ve42.co/Mack2022 Ashby, M. (2020). Materials Selection in Mechanical Design (4th edition). Elsevier. Jumping robot leaps to record heights. Nature Video - https://ve42.co/NatureJumper MultiMo-Bat Robot - https://ve42.co/MultiMoBat Galago Jump - https://ve42.co/GalagoJump Slingshot Spider - https://ve42.co/SlingshotSpider ▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: RayJ Johnson, Brian Busbee, Jerome Barakos M.D., Amadeo Bee, TTST, Balkrishna Heroor, Chris LaClair, John H. Austin, Jr., OnlineBookClub.org, Matthew Gonzalez, Eric Sexton, john kiehl, Nathan Lanza, Diffbot, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Josh Hibschman, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, jim buckmaster, Juan Benet, Robert Blum, Sunil Nagaraj, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Stephen Wilcox, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal ▀▀▀ Written by Emily Zhang and Derek Muller Filmed by Derek Muller and Trenton Oliver Animation by Mike Radjabov and Ivy Tello Edited by Trenton Oliver Additional video/photos supplied by Pond5 and Getty Images Music from Epidemic Sound Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang
I love engineering like this- simple structures deployed in novel ways, designed rigorously and exploiting particular materials to achieve a breakthrough result.
Despite all the "Nope, impossible, cant be done" spammers.
These people should be designing software interfaces. Because man, that field is packed with hacks.
I imagine the spring y part stays on the ground and are 100feet tall ish with a payload for space or meet up with a few blimps at 50,000-70,000 feet land and then do it again to reach space
You know its a good idea when you look at it and ask yourself, "how has this not been invented before?"
The NBA should allow the athletes to have nuclear missiles in their shoes so they can dunk from greater heights. It's a great idea because no one has thought of it before.
i work with patents, you'd be surprised how often we see things that would at first glance seem 'obvious'
Yes, it was. Five cent metallic jumpers with a screw or push button middle top when I was 3-5 years of age. Would jump like almost a meter, same [seems later were used in a self closing ash tray mech in bars and not sold as toys anymore. That was in the past century...
@@AutPen38 But you dont see anyone asking why no one ever thought of it before. He didnt say a good idea is one that hasnt been thought of.
lol bruh imagine if like Arabs or Muslims got revenge against the racist jews/colonialists using this idea xDDD@@AutPen38
That clip at 2:40 is actually an incredible insight into how fast this thing- and things in general can really get
2:47 The tiny frog jumping and missing dragon fly while it slightly moves out the way had me dying 😂😂😂😂
I would love to see this combined with that company creating glider drones to deliver to hospitals. They use a giant slingshot currently to get in the air, but that means they can only launch from a dedicated setup spot
Yes, It's like an arrow that carries its own bow.
Jokes on you because I pirated a scientific journal and already know about it.
based
Hey how did ya pirate a journal, am a geek, i wanna know so bad
I need to pirate some journal too
@@confusedsperm9521 all you need is a sword and an eyepatch.
@@l4g jokes on you I wanna die, also it's sad AF that you gotta do that to get subs lmao
A very very impressive robot that release an absolutly crazy amount of energy at once is Blip, a fighting robot that did great in BattleBots season 6. Its design uses a fabric/fiber being twisted by flywheel, constantly sped up by a motor to create a crazy contracting force when it's needed. It really packs a punch. The team has a video about the engineering of making it.
Link?
We designed a similar scheme which was only partially constructed before the team folded. Ours used latex rubber bands connected to steel cable to act on an axe. It was frightening! Some of the innovation was related to how the bands were manufactured and how to deal with the reaction. We chose a gas clutch to release the load but a geometric lock would've been better. Still regret not getting it mobile.
@@jordanchamp6126 Search for "BLIP REVEAL [Seems Reasonable Robotics]". Links usally get flagged as spam
@@metimmee Thats pretty intriguing, anywhere to see that?
Would love to see a 10 times bigger one, that thing sound like it could send stuff in orbit! O_O
I love the slow build up and then "VOOM" its gone.
WEIRD! I had the EXACT same thought when I first watched this video... 4 days ago! I agree and would love see this put into practical application. Of course it could only be used for unmanned things such as satellites due to the extreme G's it would most likely produce at that scale. You'd also have to consider the possible effect it may have on the Earth's actual orbit considering that it's surface is exclusively what would be propelling it (as opposed to rocket fuel). I think this idea is a GREAT one! THINK of all the possibilities! Eco-Friendly as well!
@@dwirtz0116 it couldnt jump high enough
Making it larger doesn’t make it jump higher I believe
@@fergusfisher1315 So maybe some sort of 2-stage launch involving rocket propulsion in the second stage perhaps?
@@fergusfisher1315 watch at 11:00, it would go higher
This is very similar to the "flywheel bots" in Battle Bots. By spinning up the flywheel over time, they store a crap load of energy and release it all at once on its victims. That's why they always did so well.
I wonder if adding a Small strong magnet in the center inside of each carbon fiber spring would increase the efficiency. This may possibly be achieved by not allowing the spring to rebound outward after its full release inward. By allowing the magnets to lock together after ignition might hold things more streamline on release. I noticed some wobble in the slow mo as the springs rebound. Stabilizing that energy may help thrust upward you could always add or subtract weight in the nose to balance the addition of the magnets added weight. Just a thought I may be way off… Very unique science here either way. Great video.
Thats a cool idea, could put a velcro equivalent or something sticky to keep them together maybe
Recharging would be more energy consuming
You may be right it would be something to try. But on the otherhand, have ou ever seen an arrow in flight in slow motion? Its not at all like the expression "flew straight as an arrow". It actually moves through the air like a snake or like an eel in water!
Its like a natural gyroscope of sorts due to harmonics is my understanding. Perhaps that wobble is part of what makes it what it is, like the arrow?
Only removing the wobble will tell.
I wish i could do that experiment, it would be fun to see the result!
sound interesting but it would be difficult since magnets are very brittle and would probably smash into each other and break.
It wont and you can tell by the way it is.
That is an incredibly detailed video into jumping and I love it. It would be amazing to see jumpers on the moon or mars as that is a highly efficient method of travel.🔥
I love how simple this robot is and yet this exact combination of mechanisms is groundbreaking.
Simple is beautiful
Can you buy it?
Is it available to buy
it certanly isn't groundbreaking. The basic principle has been in use for thousands of years in catapults. It's groundbreaking in the sense that it doesn't go to the common place when we think about "robots", it's a barely eletrocnic catapult
@@20teverify lol, this is correct, the only groundbreaking aspect here is the incessant miss-use of the word 'robot'.
I'd love to see this type of robot device installed into the knees of one of those humanoid robots featured in the clips of this video. With programming, the more the motors would turn the springs thus compressing, you could alter the robots stance, lower and upper body position to compensate the energy exertion. Then boom, you have a leaping humanoid robot
They already have robots that can do flips. Boston dynamics has some, and has had them for years now. So this isnt that impressive. I would be more impressed if they taught robots how to use jet propulsion technology, so they can hover like a harrier jet
@@3rdreichball525 flips are one thing, but this isn't flipping. This could be a robot jumping vertically or leaping forward a good distance
this sort of thing also seems like it's probably going to be way, way better at returning energy for every single step, than electric motors would be able to. With that, you've really solved a good portion of battery power issues with those sorts of robots.
I was thinking about it, and it could be made in such a way that under normal operation, the spring is basically disconnected, but then when they want the extra jump power, it can lock and the motors would then compress the spring as it gets into jumping position and releases it.
I imagine that the timescale requirements of these humanoid robots doesn't allow for a long winding up periods - they have to perform rapid movements and it is not known what direction those movements are gonna be. Those robots are sensing the environment and depending on outside factors they decide how they will move.
Hey Derek. Amazing video! I have one suggestion regarding this video. During the part where you were talking about sand fleas, try adding an image or slow mo of a sand flea, so that when I see the drawing about its muscle next, I can relate it to the image or video of it jumping. I didn't know what sand fleas looked liked and hence I couldn't understand this part.
I love how intuitively designed it is! Simply amazing.
This could literally launch itself out of the gravity well of smaller solar system bodies, such as asteroids, or comets. Another useful application for mechanical launching could be lunar bases. Without an atmosphere, escaping rocket exhaust can accelerate dust close to escape velocity. This could have a sandblasting effect of structures great distances away from the launch point. If a vehicle could jump a significant height, before igniting traditional rocket engines, this could be reduced.
A great point! I was also thinking of this usage for pre-launch staging! If you're launching a rocket, you probably don't need/want the spring to be part of the launch vehicle. It's a little silly, but why not use a spring to start a rail gun launch? Rocket-powered dust would be very scary on an asteroid or even a moon. I never thought of that!
If possible, it sounds like a great idea for getting off the moon.
Great idea as long as no living organism is on board. Remember he said it produces 300g's! If you like your brain in your toes sure, but otherwise nah
@@Jacob-ft3oz well on the moon it wouldn’t be 300gs. When the Apollo astronauts lifted off the moon, they experienced around .33gs, they later said it felt like riding in an elevator. When astronauts lift off from earth they experience 3gs. Trained pilots can handle about about 9gs of sustained, positive upward acceleration, so on the moon the acceleration of this craft would still be deadly. On a smaller moon or asteroid with about 1/3-1/4 of the gravity of the moon, however, such acceleration would be tolerable.
Edit: sorry, this is wrong. The 0.33gs felt by the astronauts was during descent, not liftoff, where the g force would of course just be the acceleration of the spacecraft, with nothing to do with the gravity of the moon. It requires less velocity to escape the moon’s gravity well, so in that sense astronauts would be exposed to fewer Gs, but that is the only effect of the moon’s gravity on liftoff.
@@AvanaVana No, it's still 300g. Local gravity doesn't change the strength of the jump, the acceleration is the same.
This channel makes great television. Cheers to the creator and team. And most of all Thank You
If we got enough likes together would Derek commission the 10x larger version? Deployable glide surfaces + parachute + camera package is my vote for the payload.
You forgot the seat haha
@@DemsW yeah.... 300G... splosch xD
@@DemsW yeah, I also kindly decline. Or do you want to deply the Boston Dynamics from 10:08 robots with that thing?
Well the reason it only exists as a rendered model is it will take years of materials science work to solve. The amount carbon fiber can flex or rubber can stretch doesn't scale the same way mass does in a mathematical model.
Part of the reason the prototype works has a lot to do with 'the physics of the small' vs 'the physics of the large'
@@chrisblake4198 I wonder if the size of the prototype they built is optimized for the material strength they are using
It's like 3 or 4 compound crossbows connected together and redirecting the energy's force axis!
Pretty smart!
U should try to make that it’s an amazing idea
I feel like this principle could be applied to competitive robot battles very effectively. The drawback being it'd take a long time to recharge the weapon if it missed, but if it hit, it would be devastating.
Nah the Robot is called the swarm, itd be round with like 8 of these around it. Then they just repeatedly jump into the other robot with barbed pikes attached the the end. If not destroyed its knocked over or slowed down enough by the jumper robots. The main machine then comes with a big hammer and just rapid fire swings on it. Worst case scenario, the pikes stick in, recharges then starts launching the other robot all over the place until it breaks
A crossbow?
A robot with a gun
You really helped a lot in completing the levels. Nice work
This reminds me of something I did back in high school. I'd take a rubber band and wrap it around a ballpoint pen, then pull the rubber band taught and allow the pen to slip out, shooting upwards as the rubber band released its stored energy. I didn't ever exactly measure how high it went, but I think it was launched at least 10 meters. Very entertaining.
If this were used in space though, the elastic would almost instantly dry out in the cold temperatures and so this wouldn’t work unless you insulated the contraption which would significantly reduce the power of this. It would also cause much resistance in acceleration.
Yes, but I think that it would eliminate the use of dead mass being used
That's just amazing
Hi
Hi sir you are great
Great video
Great video
Thanks for the video
Dang it would be cool to see the scaled up version! They should start a Kickstarter for it haha
would love to see an efficiency comparison to other work multiplication mechanisms, like spinning up a rotating mass and abruptly stopping it to jump (or hit another robot in battle ;)). there you have friction losses etc, but in the rubber spring you have material fatigue/degradation etc
yeah, or a compressed gas. not as a propellant as that would be against the rules but as something that shoots out a linear actuator or something
I learned so much from this video, and I’m excited the project will expand. Much love for the elephants and the bees!
This is actually very fascinating thanks for making this video!
On a chemical level, natural musculature works similarly to the Jumper's motor slowly storing energy in the spring. The fibers are loaded with ATP and then the energy can be quickly released mechanically. Muscles are unidirectional chemical springs. Muscles are biochemical springs that fire asymmetrically.
Have they looked at efficiency loss from jumping on a compressible surface, like loose sand? I would think that would be a limiting factor in an environment like the moon, where there is a large quantity of fine particles on the surface.
Efficiency loss wouldn't be much I guess
Lunar ground is pretty solid overrall isn't it?
11:40 maybe ? Not all of the moon is made of regolith(the granules are a bit bigger than sand ) ,i think the seas are made of mafic rock which is incompressible
I was thinking of this the other way around, what if it lands on a soft spot and digs itselfs in/lands under a rock or something like this. Would it be able to get itself unstuck?
@@dkaloger5720 what about cheese?
I appreciate that you’ve not added controversy click bait to this video. Keep it up and I will subscribe again.
I looked over a few comments and didn’t see this, however, if you could somehow suggest they use a thin synthetic twine, they may be able to easily avoid the snapping of the string to save a bit of time and effort
Dyneema or Spectra UHMW would work well.
At 05:50 you can see a lab test usually made to study ductility on asphalts, basically for civil engineers to chose a good material composition for each particular road design. For more details read ASTM D113
This was fascinating. Awesome stuff!
Hi,
Is this an option to start (only start) rocket launches and safe energy and money?
Then, when having reached a certain velocity succeed with the actual rocket engine.
At least it would be a starter option for getting off, of the Moon, wouldn't it?
The main issue will be the sudden high-G acceleration, so the payload would need to be able to sustain that.
Not really an option for anything fragile like satellites with extendable solar panels.
Rockets usually get less than 10 G acceleration, while the small model shown gets to more than 300 G.
Btw, SpinLaunch has similar issues (just that there, it's sustained sideways Gs instead of sudden vertical Gs).
a spring that could potentially lift a rocket would have to be absolutely massive and withstand ALOT of force on top of that the sudden G force is way more then sensitive and fragile rocket technology can handle 300 G would probably rip the whole rocket apart
I've taken suspension springs out of cars and every time I would treat it as if it was a loaded gun. The full scale version of this jumper is absolutely terrifying. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that thing when it was fully compressed.
Imagine terminator but with an army of robots such as these the size of a person
Aren't you near four compressed suspension springs whenever you're driving a car?
Check out mooring line accidents
Had similar thoughts about the upscaled jumper. It would be a decapitation machine.
@@TAllenYT The key is that they are trapped while driving. When removing them for repair work, a lot of cars require that the springs be removed under tension. That typically means a careful extraction as if whatever holding the springs in tension slips or fails, the spring instantly releases the bound energy which can cause quite a bit of danger.
You should do a video on the axiom of choice. The history is nice and the math and logic behind is super cool.
It would be interesting to see how it would deal with terrain that can absorb that impact drive, like deep snow or uncompacted soil. You can only exert as much force as the ground holding you, after all.
went through when I first started video editing, now it's taking a whole new switch and learning soft will only boost my courage for the
If you wanna be successful, you most take responsibility for your emotions, not place the blame on others. In addition to make you feel more guilty about your faults, pointing the finger at others will only serve to increase your sense of personal accountability. There's always a risk in every investment, yet people still invest and succeed. You most look outward if you wanna be successful in life.
Sure! Is a better way to counter this foreseen inflation, because all this wars everywhere are politics.
Living in one's "comfort zone" is a contributing cause to the plight of young people.
Fear is a total failure when you give up Ambitiousness; and Success is a game of dice, you throw your $coin while your investment decides your goal.
@@samiraabubakar2963 they said when you invest little money you earn big,
Can't even imagine how it is possible
Absolutely ingenious. This could completely replace wheels and rovers in land operations on other planets.
I'm not sure why, but such a small and simple thing made this one of my more favorite videos of yours. Especially once you pointed out how invaluable this would be on other planets with little to no atmosphere. I wonder if something like this could also implement a passive propeller that would slow its decent 🤔
It wouldn't be difficult to add something like retractable propellers, deploying automatically during descent, which potentially could allow the robot to start winding the spring even before it lands, thus reducing time between hops
im not sure propeller would work bc there would be almost zero mass on the planets
I wonder, could the jumping robot be so strong to the point where it shoots off and leaves the planet/ moon ? 🧐
Propeller and parachute would both be useless in 0 atmosphere. On someplace like mars where an atmosphere is thinner they would be work but very ineffective. Someplace like Venus where the atmosphere is thick the propeller would have greater efficiency than the jumping because of increased aero resistance
@@prapanthebachelorette6803 It would need to jump a lot further. The current estimate is that it can jump 500 meters, and it would need to be able to jump a total of almost 11 million meters. This could be optimized by changing the trajectory angle to maximize the distance, and the distance increases exponentially based on a slight increase of the initial force. 500 m vs 11M m may seem like a big leap, but it isn't as big as someone may initially think it is.
The emphasis on work multiplication, which lets you minimize the size of the motor, is curious given that they then added inert mass to the vehicle to go higher. They could have instead made the motor bigger (and used less work multiplication).
I think some explanation of why adding mass made it go higher is in order. There is bound to be some optimum amount of mass, and that's going to come because two opposing effects balance at that point.
The thing is, a larger motor might lead to a larger device in general as an electric motor takes up more volume/mass
Also having a weighted payload also helps with future developments of the design with regards to measurement devices or other electronics that may be needed for navigation and potential weight can be replaced.
Another excellent video Derek, cheers :>
An interesting addition to this design would be to add one-way folding helicopter/drone rotor blades that deployed at the peak of the jump to extend the distance it could glide.
Or just wings that unfold with angled drag
this was EXTREMELY useful thank you man
I don't know if there's a place to submit ideas, so I'll just throw this here. In college I took a course called The Physics of Music, and one interesting subject was why it took a few centuries to figure out how to tune a piano. It involves a lot of insight into the physics of sound and the vibrations of stretched strings. You could easily get a whole program out of it.
When I made a water bottle rocket recently, I was surprised that they advised that a weight be added to the top of the rocket. It certainly made a positive difference. So I'm interested to see the same principle at work here.
Yeah rockets are weird in that you need to add weight to the nose otherwise they are unstable. IIRC it's because the center of mass is the center or rotation and by moving it higher it creates a higher moment of inertia and the air resistance can actually stabilize the rocket. Similar to how it's a lot easier to balance a pole with weight on the end then without since it takes more time to rotate and you have more time to correct.
They do, all the motors and electronics are located at the top.
The idea is simple, if your center of mass is in front of your center of lift, your rocket will flip around, that's why a dart has most of its mass at the front, and all its wings at the rear.
It's something you learn when playing kerbal space program, if your rear is too heavy your rocket will flip at the slightest push of air.
for a rocket the center of gravity (which is the point the rocket rotates about) has to be in front of the center of area (which is the central point that the wind pushes) in order to be stable.
ok
G😊sn
If I could restart my entire career... I'd love to nerd out and work with these kids... I have so many ideas going through my head!
Yeah, stuff like this is why I am an aspiring mechanical engineer rn
@@MakeEuropeEuropeanAgain congraz. Good luck! This stuff is so fun... I got such a huge bug in my code right now I'm seriously contemplating a career change. Lol
@CriticalMonkey623 - 2022-08-31
So, to be clear, if I jump right as I fart, that wouldn't technically class as a jump. I would be "taking off" as it were. Fascinating...
@TheAlmightyKingKush - 2022-08-31
u get me
@noytelinu3409 - 2022-08-31
OPM 168
@JJ-xt2dq - 2022-08-31
yep that was definetly the main point of this video
@Nin5egAta - 2022-08-31
Wouln't your mass decrease, thus not counting as a jump?
@AnimeLover-hg4sg - 2022-08-31
and if you mini fart 2/3 times before an actual burst of true fart you can jump higher?