That Time Rice University Invented Necrobotics with a Dead Spider

In July 2022, the smartypants at Rice University released a press statement entitled “Rice engineers get a grip with ‘necrobotic’ spiders.”

So what happened?

The Birth of Necrobotics: A Discovery by Accident

Basically, one day, this dude Daniel J. Preston — who is an Assistant professor at Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and director of the Preston Innovation Lab at Rice University of Mechanical Engineering — was working with his research group when they found a dead spider in their lab and they wondered aloud why the legs curl up when spiders die. As Rice graduate student Faye Yap points out, spiders do not have biceps and triceps like people do. Instead, spiders have flexor muscles that allow their legs to extend outward by hydraulic pressure. When they die, they obviously no longer have that ability.

Necrobotics: A New Frontier in Soft Robotics

So Preston and his team — with extra directorship from lead author Faye Yap — got the idea to use a needle to inject a puff of air into the legs of dead spider and extend them. What’s more, the legs retracted when the pressure was released, which means they could actually grab objects and grip onto them — not unlike a claw. The kids at Rice University call this “necrobotics,” a word so brand-new our spellcheck does not recognize it. It’s part of a pretty new field of “soft robotics” that does not use traditional materials you’d associate with robots, like metal and electronics, and it’s fucking neat as hell.

Want to Join the Innovators? Apply to Rice University Today!

Think you can do better? If you think you are smart enough or rich enough to go to Rice University, then shoot your shot and apply to them today! In the meantime, see the video for yourself to see just how cool necrobotics is.

Image Credit: Image by Michael from Pixabay

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