Ashley Doran
Taylor Davis
Becky Hutzel
Dani Sullivan
Keaton May
Dyan Berry
ENTM 105
Professor Neal
Project 1 Paper
Cyborg Insects
Search and rescue as a response to natural disaster is incredibly time-sensitive and
important to the survival of accident victims. However, in events such as earthquakes and cave–
ins, rubble and debris can make it difficult to locate survivors, especially in the cases where large
boulders block the way. According to the World Health Organization, 160 million people are
affected by natural disasters in some way, with 90,000 of them being killed. To combat this,
researchers have looked for ways to minimize the amount of obstacle-clearing needed by
locating survivors more quickly. One such method that has seen substantial exploration in the
past few decades is with robotic insects.
The concept of merging insects with machines has been around since as early as the
1990’s, wherein the UK Department of Cybernetics experimented with entirely robotic insects
for the development of intelligent machines. Despite the large amount of research dedicated to
the task, developing fully autonomous insect machines is expensive and difficult given the
current state of intelligent computing, so more recent developments have stemmed from the
scientists and researchers at North Carolina State University to experimenting with mounting
camera and microphone modules to the backs of cockroaches, as well as using signals from a
mounted antenna to control their movement. This is more cost-effective and takes less time to
produce, as mounting electronics to the body of an insect is much easier than building an insect
from scratch.
When considering the ethics of cyborg insects, the impact on the insect and the impact on
the community must be considered. In 2013 at a TEDx conference, Greg Gage and Tim
Marzullo, co-founders of an educational company called Backyard Brains, introduced
RoboRoach #12. It’s a cyborg insect that can be controlled by an app on your phone. It’s to be
used as a lab for students, with the purpose of educating them on neuroscience. In this case,
there are ethical concerns for the damage done to the cockroaches as well as to the mental health
of the students (Underwood).
In the process of turning a cockroach into a cyborg, there are three physical damages that
must be done to the animal. Firstly, the student will sand down the head of the insect so the
electrodes will stay super glued on. Secondly, a ground wire is inserted to the cockroach’s
thorax. Thirdly, the cockroach’s antennae must be trimmed to put the silver electrodes into it.
Before any of this occurs, the students are to “douse the insect in ice water to ‘anesthetize’ it.”
While Gabe insists the cockroaches feel little pain from the lab, animal behavior scientist
Jonathan Balcombe of the Humane Society University in Washington, D.C. says it’s
