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Assistant Professor Kaushik Jayaram has developed a robot that can just about squeeze onto the surface of a penny and weighs far less than a paperclip while still being able to carry up to 10 times its own weight.

Inspired by cockroaches, Jayaram led the design of the robot as a postdoctoral scholar in Harvard’s Microrobotics Lab before joining the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2020.

These and other insect-inspired robots in his lab could quickly crawl into airplane engines or other spaces where mechanics can’t reach to conduct inspections, among many other applications.