This tiny robot can jump higher than anything else in the world. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription.

Huge thanks to Dr. Elliot Hawkes and the rest of the group - Charles Xiao, Chris Keeley, Dr. Morgan Pope, and Dr. Günter Niemeyer - for having us at UCSB and showing us their high-flying jumper. This work was partially supported by an Early Career Faculty Grant from NASA’s Space Technology Research Grants Program.

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References:

Hawkes, E.W., Xiao, C., Peloquin, R., Keeley, C., Begley, M.R., Pope, M.T., & Niemeyer, G. (2022). Engineered jumpers overcome biological limits via work multiplication. Nature, 604, 657-661. – https://rdcu.be/cMePc
https://ve42.co/Hawkes2022
Fernandez, S. (2022). Hitting New Heights. The Current, UC Santa Barbara. – https://ve42.co/Fernandez2022
Bushwick, S. (2022). Record-Breaking Jumping Robot Can Leap a 10-Story Building. Engineering, Scientific American. – https://ve42.co/Bushwick2022
Mack, E. (2022). This Robot Can Leap Nine Stories in One Jump, Will Go Even Higher on Moon. Science, CNET. – https://ve42.co/Mack2022
Ashby, M. (2020). Materials Selection in Mechanical Design (4th edition). Elsevier.
Jumping robot leaps to record heights. Nature Video - https://ve42.co/NatureJumper
MultiMo-Bat Robot - https://ve42.co/MultiMoBat
Galago Jump - https://ve42.co/GalagoJump
Slingshot Spider - https://ve42.co/SlingshotSpider

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Special thanks to Patreon supporters: RayJ Johnson, Brian Busbee, Jerome Barakos M.D., Amadeo Bee, TTST, Balkrishna Heroor, Chris LaClair, John H. Austin, Jr., OnlineBookClub.org, Matthew Gonzalez, Eric Sexton, john kiehl, Nathan Lanza, Diffbot, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Josh Hibschman, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, jim buckmaster, Juan Benet, Robert Blum, Sunil Nagaraj, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Stephen Wilcox, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal

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Written by Emily Zhang and Derek Muller
Filmed by Derek Muller and Trenton Oliver
Animation by Mike Radjabov and Ivy Tello
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Additional video/photos supplied by Pond5 and Getty Images
Music from Epidemic Sound
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang