Look Out Phelps There’s A Swumanoid Behind You

Researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology have been working on the remarkable Swumanoid swimming robot in order to help them study how humans swim so they can develop techniques to help them swim faster.

The Swumanoid robot can do a freestyle crawl at 0.64 meters per second and also knows how to do the backstroke and the butterfly. As yet, Swumanoid is unable to do the breaststroke because of the specific movement needed in the leg to perform that stroke, but researchers are working on it. At the moment, 19 Gold Medal winner, Michael Phelps is safe, but I’d be looking over my shoulder if I was him!

The team that built the Swumanoid say that as well as helping them to increase professional swimmers speed in the water, one day the Swumanoid could act as a kind of mechanical lifeguard, helping to save the lives of those who get in trouble in the water at the beach or pool. Researchers say that Swumanoid does not tire like humans do and could be a valuable life-saving tool, especially when it comes to dangerous or more challenging rescues.

I doubt it would have taken the Swumanoid lifeguard an hour and the help of 18 police officers to rescue that sex doll that was floating around in a river in China’s Shandong province!

The Swumanoid being used as a lifeguard is still a long way off however, but you never know, one day you could end up seeing Swumanoid marching around on your favorite beach in red trunks, flashing its rippling robot muscles to the sound of a tacky theme tune!