Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe May 26 (UPI) -- A team of Northwestern University engineers announced the invention of the world's smallest remote-controlled walking robot, which measures only one-half millimeter wide. The engineers said in research published in the journal Science Robotics that their crab-like robot is smaller than the thickness of a penny. Advertisement John A. Rogers, an engineering professor at the Evanston, Ill., school and co-author of the research study, said it took his team a year and a half to develop the tiny robots. The robots can walk, twist, turn and jump. They are made of a malleable shape-memory alloy, which moves by changing shape when heat is applied. Rogers said the necessary heat comes from lasers. "A laser is a convenient way to do it because we can focus the light to a very tiny spot, and we can scan that spot around to illuminate different parts of the robot's body in a time sequence," Rogers told CNN. He said the robots could be used eventually for surgical purposes or making repairs to small-scale machines. Read More Firefighters rescue ducklings from roof of three-story building Australian teen's 5.8-pound mushroom might be world's largest 22-year-old South Carolina dog named world's oldest
