Animal-inspired robotic design

Check out the graceful flow of this cheetah-inspired robot – it definitely looks like some sort of Transformers character, and we won’t be surprised if it will perform admirably. After all, Robotic designer Sangbae Kim at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is working on understanding the mechanisms in animals to replicate them in robots in order to achieve an unprecedented level of functionality and efficiency. Built from a lightweight carbon-fiber-foam composite which is able to run at 70 mph without any fuss, this cheetah robot sounds good in theory but there is the minor problem of obtaining enough juice from a motor to get it up to speed in the blink of an eye. Would it pee motor oil, we wonder?