Tiny robot can precisely control how high it jumps

Engineers have created DirectHop, a roughly 1-gram robot that can perform multiple hops in sequence and jump high enough to clear a standard stair step.

As our skies increasingly crowd with buzzing, hovering, flitting drones, spare a thought for the humble hopping robot.

Hopping, a popular form of locomotion in the insect and amphibian worlds, is nearly two orders of magnitude more energy-efficient than flying. Unlike a mosquito that must constantly ...