Tiny robots get tinier.

The Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, has challenged the limits of miniature manufacturing by dint of creating a 1/4-[in..sup.3] robot weighing les than 1 oz The throw out began three years ago when the Intelligent a whole s and Robotics Center teamed with Sandia's Sensor Technologies Department to further miniaturize a 1-[in..sup.3] robot made primarily using conventional machining techniques. by the agency of trying new techniques at packaging electronics, wheel design, and material part material, the new team of researchers dwindled the robots to 1/4-[in..sup.3]

The little