By Meghan Rosen
Meet the robot that can do parkour.
Salto, a lightweight bot that stands on one skinny leg like a flamingo, can leap from floor to wall, then off again — like parkour athletes bouncing between buildings, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley report December 6 in Science Robotics.
Salto’s not the highest jumping robot out there, but it’s got something others lack: speed. The new bot can spring a meter off the ground in just 0.58 seconds — about what a bullfrog can do, study coauthor Duncan Haldane said in a news conference December 5.