SEX, BOMBS & BURGERS

Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, one of the three research labs responsible for stewardship of the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile, has released a video of its new invention: a jumping robot.

The "Precision Urban Hopper," built by Boston Dynamics and funded of course by DARPA, is designed to perform reconnaissance in spots that soldiers can't get to. A powerful leg on the small robot propels it up and over obstacles, such as fences (as seen in the video below). It can jump over or onto obstacles up to 25 feet tall, the lab says.

The idea is that a wheeled robot that can jump over obstacles is more fuel efficient than Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, which use up a lot of gas by hovering. Check out the robot in action:



Given military designers and their penchant for pun-ny acronyms, I'm surprised they didn't call this invention something along the lines of "Fully Robust Observational Ground Robot," or FROGR.