Inspired by the movements of a tiny parasitic worm, Georgia Tech engineers have created a 5-inch soft robot that can jump as high as a basketball hoop. 

Their device, a silicone rod with a carbon-fiber spine, can leap 10 feet high even though it doesn’t have legs. The researchers made it after watching high-speed video of nematodes pinching themselves into odd shapes to fling themselves forward and backward. 

The researchers described the soft robot April 23 in Science Robotics. They said their findings could help develop robots capable of jumping across various terrain, at different heights, in multiple directions. 

“Nematodes are amazing creatures with bodies thinner than a human hair,” said Sunny Kumar, lead coauthor of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE). “They don’t have legs but can jump up to 20 times their body length. That’s like me laying down and somehow leaping onto a three-story building.”

Nematodes, also known as round worms, are among the most abundant creatures on Earth. They live in the environment and within humans, other vertebrates, and plants. They can cause illnesses in their host, which sometimes can be beneficial. For instance, farmers and gardeners use nematodes instead of pesticides to kill invasive insects and protect plants. 

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