The title is misleading. Calling it a robot is being very generous. It's basically a propeller with magnets attached such that, if you stick it inside an externally generated magnetic field, it can fly. It's completely passive and does not have any onboard sensors.
this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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Sounds like a paper airplane would make a better "battery-free, flying robot" than this thing, all you need is an arm to throw it
Robot comes from the word roboto, that is work, no? If it can do autonomous work, it is a robot.
Yeah, so calling this a robot would be incorrect.
It would be more of a robot part with the rest of the robot being the magnet
Technically, maybe. Pretty limited applications, I think, but very cool.
It almost looks like one of those toy helicopters that you launch by just lifting it up a coiled rod so it spins really fast.
Yeah, I wonder how far they can extend the magnetic fields that power them? Even if it is relatively short range, they look really cheap to make, so you could have thousands of them with sensors to scan localized areas.
Don't give them ideas...
If they make one that moves with radio waves, it would be really great.
I also like the plant seeding robot in the video. Even though I would like to see the flying robots into action in a video.