Flying Robot Bees Can Now Swim, Too

Robot Bees Wyss Institute/Harvard Robot bees as seen in 2013, soon after they first achieved controlled flight. When given the choice between sinking and swimming, these RoboBees will swim every time. We first wrote about Harvard scientists' invention of robotic bees back in 2013. In some ways, not much has changed. The bees are still leashed to their power supply, too small to carry onboard computers and batteries. But in the past two years, they've picked up a new trick: they've learned how to swim. The bees are so small and light that the surface tension of the water prevents them from delicately sinking into a glass. But the researchers found that if the bees cannonball into the water, they turn into very happy swimmers. As it...

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