By Staff Writer (media@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Jul 31, 2015 06:17 AM EDT

A new robot insect has been created with the ability to jump on water without causing a splash.

The artificial bug was a great demonstration of how modern technology can copy the principles of nature.

“I'm just fascinated by how the water striders can jump on water and I'm really excited to see that we were able to extract the principles from nature to re-create one of the most fascinating locomotion of nature, the water jumping," said Kyujin Cho, professor of mechanical engineering at Seoul National University.

"This robotic technology could probably be used for building [a] large number of robots that can float, and jump on water for surveillance missions. An example can be found in the movie Minority Report, where many small insect-like robots are deployed in an apartment in search for a fugitive — of course, we do not want the robots to be used by bad people,” the researchers wrote in a press release.

NBC News reported that the prototype robot weighs a mere 68 milligrams or two-thousandths of an ounce and has a length of 2 centimeters or 3/4 inches.

The researchers from Seoul National University and Harvard University observed how Gerridae, or water striders, jumped on water to come up with a robot that can do the same.

They observed how the long legs of the bug helped it accelerate in a gradual manner, so that the surface of the water does not retreat quickly and lose contact with its legs.

As a result, the water strider, and the robotic insect, can propel on water without splashing.

The Verge wrote that the goal of the study was to observe and explore aquatic mobility in a tiny robot. The authors came up with the theory that the maximum force of the creature’s legs is constantly just below the maximum force that water surface tension can tolerate.

A torque reversal catapult (TRC) mechanism was used in the robot to create a minor starting torque that slowly increases, without going past the surface tension of the water.

The water strider also tends to sweep its legs inward to maximize the time to push off the water surface. Overall momentum is then maximized.

The same principle was used to make the robot bug launch itself without breaking the water surface. If the surface remains unbroken, it can tolerate 16 times the body weight of the artificial bug.

The robot can launch at the same height, regardless of whether it is on water or ground.

The results of the experiment were published in the journal Science Mag.

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