Yikes, A RoboRoach Made By Grafting A Toy Bug To A Real Bug

Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

Friday, March 4th, 2011


Some aspiring Dr. Frankensteins have taken the circuitry from a Hexbug remote control critter and grafted it directly to the nervous system of a large cockroach. They can now steer the cockroach.

I’m not taking any kind of moral high ground here, and this stuff is very interesting to me, but it still squicks me out to think that we are capable of doing this bio-manipulation so easily. Backyard Brains, the company who made this “RoboRoach,” are planning on offering a kit. A mind-control kit for bugs! Oh my god, you guys.

[via BoingBoing]