Imagine a robot that can wedge itself through the cracks in rubble to search for survivors trapped in the wreckage of a collapsed building. Engineers at CU Boulder are moving one step closer to that goal with CLARI, short for Compliant Legged Articulated Robotic Insect.

Right now, CLARI has four legs. But the machine’s design allows engineers to mix and match its appendages, potentially giving rise to some wild and wriggly robots.

“It has a modular design, which means it’s very easy to customize and add more legs,” Kabutz said. “Eventually, we’d like to build an eight-legged, spider-style robot that could walk over a web.”