“What looks like a tiny mechanical ostrich chasing after a car is actually a significant leap forward for robot-kind. The clever and simple two-legged robot, known as the Planar Elliptical Runner, was developed at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, Florida, to explore how mechanical design can be used to enable sophisticated legged locomotion. A video produced by the researchers shows the robot being tested in a number of situations, including on a treadmill and running behind and alongside a car with a helping hand from an engineer. In contrast to many other legged robots, this one doesn’t use sensors and a computer to help balance itself. Instead, its mechanical design provides dynamic stability as it runs. “All the intelligence is in the physical design of the robot itself,” says Jerry Pratt, a senior research scientist at IHMC who leads the team that developed the robot. Pratt’s group at IHMC is working on a range of different robots. The design might feed into future systems. “We believe that the lessons learned from this robot can be applied to more practical running robots to make them more efficient and natural looking,” Pratt adds. “Running will be eventually useful for any application that you want to do quickly and where wheels can’t work well.””