Nanosoccer is Serious Business
Imagine a robotic David Beckham six times smaller than an amoeba playing with
a "soccer ball" no wider than a human hair ... with all of the action happening
on a field the size of single grain of rice.
NIST's conducts its nanosoccer competitions and demonstrations in conjunction
with RoboCup, an international organization dedicated to using the game of soccer
as a testing ground for the robotics technologies of the future. NIST's
goal in coordinating competitions between the world's smallest robots-known
as nanobots (nanoscale robots)-is to show the feasibility and accessibility
of technologies for fabricating MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS), tiny
mechanical devices built onto semiconductor chips and measured in micrometers
(millionth of a meter).
The soccer nanobots are operated by remote control under an optical microscope.
They move in response to changing magnetic fields or electrical signals transmitted
across the microchip arena. Although the bots are a few tens of micrometers
to a few hundred micrometers long, they are considered "nanoscale"
because their masses range from a few nanograms to a few hundred nanograms.
They are manufactured from materials such as aluminum, nickel, gold, silicon
and chromium.
VIDEO
Run time 2.32 mins