Designing Robobees Poses Engineering Challenge

The robotic bee, or “robobee” has an electronic nervous system that tells it to flap its wings, an exoskeleton inspired by a children’s pop-up book and a computer-chip brain.

Researchers at Harvard University are designing these tiny robots, which could be used to search for victims in rubble after a disaster, they say. What bees in nature achieve without any effort requires incredibly complex architecture and engineering, it turns out. For example, finding a fuel source light enough to allow the bees to fly. More in the video above.

Miles O’Brien reports for the National Science Foundation’s* Science Nation.

For the record, the National Science Foundation is an underwriter of the NewsHour.