The Ball Robot
The gyrosphere robot, a ball-shaped robot, could impact everything from space exploration to search and rescue.
Its inventor, Greg Schroll, is now being recognized by Popular Mechanics magazine, naming him one of the 10 Most Brilliant Innovators of 2009 - not a bad list to make at 23 years old.
Schroll used to daydream about a soccer ball that could redirect its course while rolling. As a mechanical engineering student at MIT, he built a spherical robot that can do just that.
At MIT’s famously well-equipped Hobby Shop, Schroll used an abrasive water-jet machine to cut aluminum and steel parts for his prototype. He plundered parts from radio-control helicopters and cars and, for an outer shell, repurposed an 18-inch gumball-machine globe from the Wizard Vending Co.
The Gyrosphere Robot uses gyroscopes and operates by twin drive motors and several RC-control batteries.
For traction, Schroll attached rubber strips from a playground kickball. The result was a remote-control ball that could navigate steep, rugged terrain, even from a dead stop.
Since the outer shell is a continuous surface, it could be made impervious to harmful chemicals or hermetically sealed and made to float in water.
“One of my fantasy ideas is to build it with enough suspension to allow it to be airdropped,” Schroll says. “I imagine a cargo plane dumping 1000 of these spherical robots. They wouldn’t need any landing equipment. They’d bounce and start collecting information.”
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