Despite one of the least popular creatures that we coexist with or without our knowledge, roaches seem to be inspirational: robots that mimic roaches may be sent to the rescue in potential future disaster sites such as a building collapse.

No matter how much we dislike them, the regular roach seems to be an amazing living thing. In any sci-fi story that depicts a post-apocalyptic story, which animal do you think is one of the last remaining species with no other radioactive mutation than growing really big? Roaches of course. What other animal can reduce its regular body size to about a quarter in order to squeeze through different places and withstand up to 900 times its weight and still be unscathed?

Which is why may be humans may dislike them so much too. Extremely resilient and shockingly fast – about 60 centimeters per second – roaches have become muse for a group of scientists at the University of California-Berkeley. The reason – they wish to study the way roaches function in order to start working on a prototype robot that could assist rescue teams for events such as earthquakes.

The first focus of the scientists in the study they commenced on the theme was roaches’ ability to move through incredibly small spaces. By making use of high-speed cameras in order to film the insects move through various places, the researchers observed the roaches moving through spaces as narrow as 3 millimeters wide – and that is about one fourth of the standing height of a roach.

The roaches’ speed is also a reason the scientists wish to take example from them in order to build their robot. The reason roaches are so fast is the fact that they make use of more than just their legs – by employing a form of sliding thanks to the friction they have on their backs and bellies. The scientists call this “body-friction legged crawling”, meaning that roaches use several methods of moving in order to be efficient.

Once the study is complete, more details regarding CRAM – Compressible Robot with Articulated Mechanisms – will be made official to the public and even have a prototype presented. The robot in question wishes to impersonate a roach’s ability to squeeze through tight spots and also withstand huge amounts of weight in order to help rescuers sift through debris without endangering the construction even more.

While it’s not exactly already thought out how the robot would be able to help with actually rescuing any potential victims, but they could at least be used to squeeze through and send back information to rescuers regarding survivors and even the nature of injuries they have.

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