The jumper presented with a hybrid spring in a stable pre-jump configuration. credit: Elliot W Hawkes When engineers want to design robots capable of navigating complex real-world environments, they often turn to the animal kingdom. Such biomimicry has created bots that run like dogs or cheetahs or hop like flying birds in flight. But now researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara have reached new heights, bypassing the constraints of the biological model. His 30-centimeter long jumper can jump more than 30 meters in the air—about the height of a 10-story building and 100 times its own height. This anti-gravity display is many heads and shoulders from the distance any living creature can reach. U.C. A mechanical engineer, Elliot W. "The best animal jumper [called a squirrel-sized primate] is the galago, which has been measured to jump about 2.3 meters high from a standstill," Hawks says. Santa Barbara and lead au...