Why is MIT making robot insects?

What happens when you shrink robots down to the size of insects? Let’s explore the mind-bending physics behind their superpowers! Engineers get Onshape Professional free up to 6 months: go to https://www.onshape.pro/veritasium to create CAD models and bring your ideas to life.

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00:00 The Problem Of Surface Tension
3:16 How Does A Bee Fly?
7:08 What Powers Something So Small?
8:16 Tiny Muscles
10:36 Pogo Sticks On Mars
11:27 Mini Search Parties
13:29 Swarms Of Spybots
15:55 Penny Sized Combustion Engines
18:40 Science For Science’s Sake

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A massive thank you to Kevin Chen and the Soft and Micro Robotics Laboratory at MIT.
for hosting us and showcasing their incredible robots. Do check out their paper Acrobatics at Insect Scale: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.adp4256
We’re incredibly grateful to Mechanical Engineering at Cornell and the Harvard Microrobotics Lab for their groundbreaking work that informed much of what we’ve shared here.
Special thanks to Pakpong Chirarattananon and Cameron Aubin for their expertise and insights into mini-robot science.

CORRECTION: The scale bar at 18:19 is wrong. It should be 2cm, not 2mm. Thanks @nicolaszaugg5825 for pointing it out.

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If you’re looking for a molecular modeling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically. https://snatoms.com/

References: https://ve42.co/botsrefs

Video and Image Credits:
Giving bug-like, flying robots a boost by MIT via YouTube - https://ve42.co/FlyingRobots
Leading edge vortex stably attached near the base of a freely flying maple seed Acer pseudo-platanus by Francis Villatoro via YouTube - https://ve42.co/VortexStab
NASA Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Animations by JPLRaw via YouTube - https://ve42.co/IngenuityAnim
Rolls-Royce | SWARM Robots by Rolls Royce via YouTube - https://ve42.co/SWARMRobots
Robot Rescue: Behind The Technology Deployed For Disaster Relief | by NBC News via YouTube - https://ve42.co/RobotRescue
Call to Service: The Final Rescue of 9/11 by 5.11 Tactical via YouTube - https://ve42.co/CallToService
Colony Collapse: The Mystery of the Missing Bees | Retro Report | by NYT via YouTube - https://ve42.co/ColonyCollapse

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:
Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Autodidactic Studios, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, Evgeny Skvortsov, Farbod Mansorian, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, Greg Scopel, I. H., Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Sam Lutfi, Spilmann Reed, TTST, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, gpoly, meg noah, wolfee

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Directed by Henry van Dyck
Written by Henry van Dyck
Edited by Nick Lear and Trenton Oliver
Animated by Fabio Albertelli, Jakub Misiek, Emma Wright and Ivy Tello
Filmed by Henry van Dyck, Petr Lebedev and Michael Cimpher
Additional Research by Geeta Thakur and Gabe Bean
Produced by Derek Muller, Henry van Dyck, Rob Beasley Spence, and Tori Brittain
Thumbnail contributions by Ben Powell, Peter Sheppard, Ren Hurley and Henry van Dyck
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images and Story blocks
Music from Epidemic Sound

Post from Veritasium on January 21, 2025

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