Metal-Organic Crystallized Glasses: Microstructure Formation and Their Properties.

Partial crystallization within a glass matrix to form microcrystalline domains offers a pathway to glass-ceramic materials with properties distinct from those of both the parent glass and crystalline phases. This concept has been limited to inorganic glasses. Here, we introduce metal-organic crystallized glasses (MOCGs), prepared by controlling the crystallization process within metal-organic framework (MOF) glasses, and explore their properties.

Forceful manipulation with micro air vehicles.

Micro air vehicles (MAVs) are finding use across an expanding range of applications. However, when interacting with the environment, they are limited by the maximum thrust they can produce. Here, we describe FlyCroTugs, a class of robots that adds to the mobility of MAVs the capability of forceful tugging up to 40 times their mass while adhering to a surface.

Stress distribution and contact area measurements of a gecko toe using a high-resolution tactile sensor.

The adhesive systems of geckos have been widely studied and have been a great source of bioinspiration. Load-sharing (i.e.

Human climbing with efficiently scaled gecko-inspired dry adhesives.

Since the discovery of the mechanism of adhesion in geckos, many synthetic dry adhesives have been developed with desirable gecko-like properties such as reusability, directionality, self-cleaning ability, rough surface adhesion and high adhesive stress. However, fully exploiting these adhesives in practical applications at different length scales requires efficient scaling (i.e.

Design principles for efficient, repeated jumpgliding.

Combined jumping and gliding locomotion, or 'jumpgliding', can be an efficient way for small robots or animals to travel over cluttered terrain. This paper presents functional requirements and models for a simple jumpglider which formalize the benefits and limitations of using aerodynamic surfaces to augment jumping ability. Analysis of the model gives insight into design choices and control strategies for higher performance and to accommodate special conditions such as a slippery launching surface.