Can’t help thinking it would be easy to use these sorts of critters as weapons of mass destruction. Cheaply manufacture millions of them, load them with virulent diseases and and send them out to bite or sting entire populations:

It weighs just 80 milligrams, has a pair of wings that flap 120 times a second and has taken 10 years to develop.

The Robobee, inspired by the biology of a fly, is believed to be the first working model of a flying insect.

Harvard University post-graduate student Pakpon Chirarattananon has recorded the first flight of the RoboBee micro UAV project.

According to research published in the journal Science, it could be used for everything from environmental monitoring, search-and-rescue operations, to helping with crop pollination.

Its wafer-thin wings flap almost invisibly using two strips of ceramic that expand and contract as an electric field is switched on and off.

Full Report: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10881444

>load them with virulent diseases

…or just deadly venom.

Bubblecar said:

>load them with virulent diseases

…or just deadly venom.

why not just infect their bees with a colony collapse disorder?

Bubblecar said:

Can’t help thinking it would be easy to use these sorts of critters as weapons of mass destruction. Cheaply manufacture millions of them, load them with virulent diseases and and send them out to bite or sting entire populations:

You have an evil, twisted mind.

shuts window – there that should fix them until they run out of power.

send a swarm to North Korea to bite a certain dictator

video of one here

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/05/03/3751356.htm

you could use smaller versions to climb into bee colonies struck by the varroa parasite and kill the parasite by zapping the things off bees after crawling inside

you could always develop a small robot to crawl into the hive with no wings

it could be something with spider legs that crawls around with a laser on a small rod that is manoeuvered around to shoot varroa mites after they are seen.

if you made them cheap enough and small enough you could send them in the post to apiarists and they just switch them on and release them into the hive hunting down the parasite

once the mite has been killed the robots remain in the hive standing a sentries to guard from the mite coming in on the back of a returning bee

wookiemeister said:

you could use smaller versions to climb into bee colonies struck by the varroa parasite and kill the parasite by zapping the things off bees after crawling inside

I wonder how the bees would react to robobees, as the robobees would not be giving off any chemical signatures

CrazyNeutrino said:

wookiemeister said:

you could use smaller versions to climb into bee colonies struck by the varroa parasite and kill the parasite by zapping the things off bees after crawling inside

I wonder how the bees would react to robobees, as the robobees would not be giving off any chemical signatures

I reckon they would ignore them

they wouldn’t be giving off any clues that they were “alive” or anything else that would signal a threat

you could I guess use a raspberry pi on legs to enter the hive, powered by rechargeable batteries. the charging area could be around the hive , when power is low the raspberry pi crawler could go and charge.

you’d maybe need a spectral response method to just shoot anything that looks like a mite

> The Robobee, inspired by the biology of a fly, is believed to be the first working model of a flying insect.

No. I have a dragonfly at home. A flapping wing flying machine. http://img.timeinc.net/time/2007/top_10_photos/gadgets_dragonfly.jpg

What is different about the Robobee is that it has only two wings (most insects have four) and is very small. My dragonfly is more the size of a dragonfly from the Carboniferous – big.

> Its wafer-thin wings flap almost invisibly using two strips of ceramic that expand and contract as an electric field is switched on and off.

That’s a breakthrough. I wish more robots used muscles like that rather than bulky and grossly inefficient pneumatic or hydraulic cylinders.

One thinks immediately of espionage but there would be a limit to how good an image you could get from a camera such a bee could carry.

I was rethinking the varroa mite killer method

instead of a crawling machine inside you could have a a sliding rod that allows the laser and camera to be lowered down the side of the hives structure, you could shoot the mite off the backs of bees and pupae as they move around

the crawling action would just make it more expensive and expensive, stepper motors could be used to move the laser horizontally and vertically, I think you use g-code for this. the camera and laser would be together. even injuring the mite would make it weak enough to fall off or die in situ, you wouldn’t need to necessarily kill it in one hit

the only difference is that the hive would need to be engineered to take the sliding mechanism instead of just releasing it into the colony.

wookiemeister said:

I was rethinking the varroa mite killer method

instead of a crawling machine inside you could have a a sliding rod that allows the laser and camera to be lowered down the side of the hives structure, you could shoot the mite off the backs of bees and pupae as they move around

the crawling action would just make it more expensive and expensive, stepper motors could be used to move the laser horizontally and vertically, I think you use g-code for this. the camera and laser would be together. even injuring the mite would make it weak enough to fall off or die in situ, you wouldn’t need to necessarily kill it in one hit

the only difference is that the hive would need to be engineered to take the sliding mechanism instead of just releasing it into the colony.

hmm now I know you are mad.. ever poked a light in a bee hive?

roughbarked said:

wookiemeister said:

I was rethinking the varroa mite killer method

instead of a crawling machine inside you could have a a sliding rod that allows the laser and camera to be lowered down the side of the hives structure, you could shoot the mite off the backs of bees and pupae as they move around

the crawling action would just make it more expensive and expensive, stepper motors could be used to move the laser horizontally and vertically, I think you use g-code for this. the camera and laser would be together. even injuring the mite would make it weak enough to fall off or die in situ, you wouldn’t need to necessarily kill it in one hit

the only difference is that the hive would need to be engineered to take the sliding mechanism instead of just releasing it into the colony.

hmm now I know you are mad.. ever poked a light in a bee hive?

no you install the mechanism BEFORE bees go in their.

if I could get any of my shit together I would have a go at making one. been too busy recently installed a new cooktop and oven yesterday. shed kit still laying on concrete slab.