Experiments have shown before that simple insects have very simple responses to detecting light in different directions. Shine a light in one eye, they go left. Shine a light in the other eye, they go right. Shine a light in both eyes, they go straight forward.
It would be fairly simple to glue a couple tiny LEDs to the insect’s eyes and wire them up to a tiny microcontroller and radio receiver. And voila – remote control roach.
Probably not super reliable in the controls and doesn’t always go exactly where you want it … but it should do a decent job of going in the general direction you tell it to.
This is either real or a terrifyingly elaborate hoax.
Actual product page
At Avantor
Vsauce made a video on it!
This very much could be real.
Experiments have shown before that simple insects have very simple responses to detecting light in different directions. Shine a light in one eye, they go left. Shine a light in the other eye, they go right. Shine a light in both eyes, they go straight forward.
It would be fairly simple to glue a couple tiny LEDs to the insect’s eyes and wire them up to a tiny microcontroller and radio receiver. And voila – remote control roach.
Probably not super reliable in the controls and doesn’t always go exactly where you want it … but it should do a decent job of going in the general direction you tell it to.