Category: BioinspiredRobots

TadBot in canister with attending parents

Introduction

TadBot is a collaboration between Prof. Lauren O’Connell and PhD student Billie Goolsby in the Dept. of Biology and BDML to create tadpole-mimetic robots for studying the parenting dynamics of poison frogs, Ranitomeya imitator. These frogs are remarkable in that they pair bond and both parents take care of the offspring, feeding and protecting them.

The goal of TadBot is to create convincing tadpole simulators that will persuade Ranitomeya imitator parents that they need to be fed. While the study is ongoing, preliminary details on TadBot and the experimentation setup are provided in a paper for Living Machines 2023: (preprint)

TadBot resides in a plastic canister with water (A). The body (B) contains a lever (D) that rotates about a pivot under the action of a motor-driven tendon (C) and restoring elastic band.

Videos

Unfortunately a number of videos are somewhat out of focus -- we are procuring a shorter focal length lens. Nonetheless one can see TadBot wiggling and observe (and hear) parents coordinating care.

Two parents coordinating care	Calling to coordinate care
TadBot wiggling with parent in canister	Two parents coordinating care