This crazy underwater robot uses 12 spinning arms to swim around like bacteria

Bacteria is amazing. We’ve found bacteria we’ve never seen on the ISS, and even bacteria that can eat forever chemicals. But what do you get when you combine a Raspberry Pi, 12 motorized arms, and some microbial inspiration? A bacteria-inspired robot named ZodiAq that swims using flexible flagella—just like microbes do. It’s slow, smart, and surprisingly delicate for something with twelve spinning limbs.

Developed by researchers at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, ZodiAq is an underwater...