Can your shower hose climb walls?

Robotics is an area that is changing right before our eyes, with standard anthropomorphic robots being replaced by flexible devices that are much more manoeuvrable than their unwieldy counterparts.

Scientists from Cambridge University partnered with Japanese robotics engineers to create a machine called LEeCH. The machine’s unique feature is that it was built from a regular shower hose, which can now climb walls.

According to the project creators, this is the first machine capable of climbing along vertical surfaces. When building this device, scientists were inspired by nature - primarily snakes and leeches - with the latter giving them the idea to use suction cups, which enable the device’s movements.

The idea to use a regular hose as the basis of the robot first came to Doctor of Science Ayato Kanada while taking a shower. In the end, the device that can be seen in the video below was created. In the future, such machines will be used for house repairs, search and rescue missions and inspection of complex mechanisms.