Check Out What Some are Calling the Smallest Flying Machine Ever!

They’re even smaller than an ant.

Transcript

00:00these might not look like much and that's actually kind of the point that's because

00:08they're the smallest man-made flying machines ever built the micro flyers as they're being called

00:13don't have an engine but rather they're built like the seat of a maple tree floating downward

00:17on the wind using the micro flyers propeller shaped body the goal was to develop a device

00:21that could fall extremely slowly in a controlled fashion spending as much time hanging in the air

00:25as possible without the need for an engine or fuel source so the team looked at tree seeds which have

00:30had millions of years of evolution to hone their particular set of skills according to the

00:34northwestern university engineers the tiny flyers could be used to monitor air pollution and other

00:39air quality control levels with the device's lead developer bioelectronics pioneer professor john

00:44rogers saying they could allow us to quote distribute highly functional miniaturized electronic devices to

00:50sense the environment for contamination monitoring population surveillance or disease tracking and the

00:55best part the micro flyers can dissolve in water meaning no one has to track down the tiny devices

01:00after their job is done