A Stanford University engineering team including PhD candidate Elliot Hawkes has created a pair of pads inspired by the adhesive properties of gecko fingers that make it possible for their wearers to scale the side of a building. The so-called “gecko gloves” have 24 independent adhesive tiles on each pad, helping to better distribute the climber’s weight.
Furthermore, we found that the synthetic adhesion system does not fail catastrophically when a simulated failure is induced on a portion of the adhesive.
image via Elliot Hawkes
