So, for a toy that can help develop the skills for judging distance and angles while making playtime just plain amazing, you need the Robo Chameleon! Kim, H., Choi, J., Kim, K. K., Won, P., Hong, S., & Ko, S. H. (2021). Biomimetic chameleon soft robot with artificial crypsis and disruptive coloration skin. Nature Communications, 12(1). doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24916-w There are currently more than 200 known species of chameleons, most of which are native to Madagascar, a biodiversity hotspot in the Indian Ocean. They come in all sizes, from the chunky Parson’s chameleon ( Calumma parsonii) that can grow to 69 centimeters (27 inches), to the smallest, just shy of 1.4 cm (0.55 in). They all move with a halting grace, their forked feet clutching branches, freewheeling eyeballs surveying their nook. A Parson’s chameleon. Image by Rhett A. Butler. If colors and patterns can both be replicated in real time, it could pave the way for clothing that essentially makes the wearer invisible.

Then comes the more complicated matter of reproducing the legible visuals. Chameleons can display various colors by using the muscle cells of the skin. Today, it’s possible to buy color-changing mugs online that display predetermined patterns, but nothing quite as sophisticated as something that uses new information from the environment to alter itself in real time.At other times, they have been observed relying on flashy, colorful displays to distinguish themselves, especially when trying to attract mates or frighten off competition. We think that if it weren’t for their size, chameleons would get a lot more fame in the animal kingdom. After all, they’re awesome! They’ve got skin that can change colour, eyes that can cover pretty much every angle imaginable, and, of course, elasticated tongues. So, we can completely see why they were the inspiration for the Robo Chameleon! Like real chameleons, the robo-chameleon collects information from its environment in real time, but the way it reproduces the colors on its artificial “skin” is different. To construct the robot’s coat of many colors, the researchers made a “skin” using a thin glaze of liquid crystal ink that can take on any color, depending on the alignment of its molecules. When these particles assemble into larger helical structures, they can reflect a specific color of light. The size of the structures dictates the color displayed. A larger repeating arrangement gives reddish tints. Tighter arrangements appear blue.

The Robo Chameleon is suitable for age 3-8 years +. It is a “food” guzzling, colour changing, walking robot. It has a really funky design and parts light up with an LED, which change colour at the push of a button. In fact, there are 10 different colours. It is very easy to control with the remote control, and both the eyes and tail move as this cute little character walks. You can use the remote control to move in 4 different directions. Changing colors is not even singularly about camouflage for these lizards. There is growing evidence to suggest that chameleons use it as a way to communicate too. Sometimes, they want to blend into the environment to avoid predators or be inconspicuous to potential prey.Chameleons can change color thanks to the migration of pigments and the tuning of nanocrystal within specialized cells generating structural colors,” said Michel C. Milinkovitch, an evolutionary geneticist who heads the Laboratory of Artificial & Natural Evolution at the University of Geneva. Such advancements would make the technology especially useful for militaries that use camouflage in their routine work. Artificial crypsis, or concealment, first emerged as part of defense research. Other applications lie in the domains of art, architecture and clothing. The thermal control of the liquid crystal coat has several limitations, says Steven Morin, a chemist at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. First, he says the skin is easier to heat than to cool down, so it may not switch from a hot color like blue to a cold color like red as fast as it would switch from red to blue. Furthermore, the temperature ranges the robot uses are rather narrow, from room temperature of 78 degrees Fahrenheit to approximately human body temperatures of 97 degrees. And Morin says that the skin color may be affected by its surroundings, especially in chilly weather or under direct sunlight on a hot day. Teyssier, J., Saenko, S. V., Van der Marel, D., & Milinkovitch, M. C. (2015). Photonic crystals cause active colour change in chameleons. Nature Communications, 6(1). doi: 10.1038/ncomms7368 A robot modeled on a chameleon and developed by South Korean researchers can change colors to match its surroundings.

This robot has provided hours of hilarious fun and I can see it providing many more as you can hide the magnetic “food” around the house while the children walk their robot around in hunt of their prey.It doesn’t sport swivelly eyes or an absurdly long tongue, but a new robot does boast of a chameleon’s most eye-catching trait: being able to change colors on demand. The researchers say they hope the system will in future be able to read and mimic patterns as well. Milinkovitch, who was not involved in the new research, called the technology “impressive,” noting that, in some respects, the robo-chameleon could do even more than its wild-born counterparts. This robotic chameleon toy is controlled by a remote control that lets you move it around and, of course, trigger that tongue! This is excellent for dexterity training, and it’s a whole lot of fun, too! It comes with little magnetic food disks that you can gobble up.

The last button on the remote changes the colour of the LED so that he can blend in with its environment. My favourite is the blue, but it’s fun changing from colour to colour.To create a model like this, the researchers had to answer two fundamental problems: what will be the input, and what will be the output? For the first, the robo-chameleon collects information about its surroundings through visual cues, similar to a real chameleon. The latter use all-seeing eyeballs to read the environment. The robot uses color sensors to capture the intensity of red, green, and blue light. These primary colors combine to form the colors visible to humans. In the future, the researchers aim to build another color changing icon in the animal kingdom with a squirming chassis to match: an octopus. They’ll borrow the design of the artificial chameleon skin to achieve camouflage in their cephalopod. But “it's movement is much more complex than a chameleon,” says Ko, which is where the main engineering challenge lies. This complex process of pigment distribution and structural sorcery that chameleons employ cannot be artificially reproduced with current technology. It’s difficult for humans to wrap their heads around this idea because it requires seeing the skin not as a wrapper around the body but as a living organ.