--- title: Researchers Use Balls of Ants to Inspire Robotic Designs description: The discovery of the properties of ant structures could help create robots that help in disaster responses canonical: https://time.com/2863317/scientists-believe-mystery-behind-balls-of-ants-may-inspire-robotic-designs/ author: Melissa Hellmann article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-13T03:01:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T08:22:34.562Z article:section: Science og:title: Researchers Use Balls of Ants to Inspire Robotic Designs og:description: The discovery of the properties of ant structures could help create robots that help in disaster responses og:url: https://time.com/2863317/scientists-believe-mystery-behind-balls-of-ants-may-inspire-robotic-designs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2f8c6c6780d61df/6986973fe53aba0d714d31e3/157505924.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3536 og:image:height: 1989 og:image:alt: 157505924 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Researchers Use Balls of Ants to Inspire Robotic Designs twitter:description: The discovery of the properties of ant structures could help create robots that help in disaster responses twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2f8c6c6780d61df/6986973fe53aba0d714d31e3/157505924.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Scientists Believe Mystery Behind Balls of Ants May Inspire Robotic Designs by [Melissa Hellmann](https://time.com/author/melissa-hellmann/) ## Melissa Hellmann Jun 13, 2014 3:01 AM UTC  Fire ants link together to form a structure. Fire ants link together to form a structure.Getty Images—Anders Boman by [Melissa Hellmann](https://time.com/author/melissa-hellmann/) ## Melissa Hellmann Jun 13, 2014 3:01 AM UTC Scientists have long known that colonies of fire ants will [join ](http://www.nature.com/news/secrets-of-ant-rafts-revealed-1.15400?WT.mc%5Fid=TWT%5FNatureNews#/ref-link-1)themselves into a collective ball during floods to better their chances of survival, but their ability to form this structure has largely remained a mystery. Now, though, a team of engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology has studied the properties of the ant ball to discover that the insects strategically placed themselves in the formation depending on their size — findings that could inspire new design methods for material scientists and robotic technicians. The study, which was published in the _Journal of Experimental Biology_, revealed that the ants use adhesive pads on their legs to link together. They then position themselves perpendicularly in the formation, with the smaller ants lodging between bigger ants to maximize efficiency of space. Radhika Nagpal, a robot designer at Harvard University, believes that the discovery could help inspire simple robots that link together to solve a problem. She adds that the responsive robots could come in handy in extreme situations when there are limited resources. “Imagine robots that need to construct a barrier or patch a hole during a disaster response,” Nagpal explains in the journal _Nature_. The team of researchers thinks that along with helping in disaster responses, the discovery could also contribute to the design of “smart” materials that are able to respond to changes in the environment such as temperature and light. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2863317/scientists-believe-mystery-behind-balls-of-ants-may-inspire-robotic-designs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2863317/scientists-believe-mystery-behind-balls-of-ants-may-inspire-robotic-designs/"},"headline":"Scientists Believe Mystery Behind Balls of Ants May Inspire Robotic Designs","datePublished":"2014-06-13T03:01:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:22:34.562Z","description":"The methods in which ants link themselves together could inspire new robots to help with disaster response and materials that respond to changes in environment","url":"https://time.com/2863317/scientists-believe-mystery-behind-balls-of-ants-may-inspire-robotic-designs/","keywords":["robots","U.S.","Science topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2f8c6c6780d61df/6986973fe53aba0d714d31e3/157505924.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Hellmann","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-hellmann/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2f8c6c6780d61df/6986973fe53aba0d714d31e3/157505924.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"157505924","caption":"Fire ants link together to form a structure.","creditText":"Getty Images—Anders Boman","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/robots/","name":"robots"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2863317/scientists-believe-mystery-behind-balls-of-ants-may-inspire-robotic-designs/","name":"Scientists Believe Mystery Behind Balls of Ants May Inspire Robotic Designs"}}]}] ```