University of Warwick - Students' robot crawls to victory

A rescue robot that can crawl through a disaster environment to search for victims in need of help, developed by a group of English students, has won an international robotics contest. The team of engineering and computer science students from the University of Warwick won the ninth RoboCup German Open 2010, held in Magdeburg earlier this month. One of the competition-winning tricks performed by the Warwick team's robot was its use of an arm with "four degrees of movement". The inventors said this gave it greater turning flexibility than the head of an owl, allowing use of the arm in tight situations without the whole robot having to move.