Robofly is the first robotic model of insect flight, created by Michael Dickinson, a bioengineering professor now at Caltech. Dickinson built a scaled version of a fly’s wings—with a wingspan of 60 centimeters—and immersed it in two tons of mineral oil to generate flow patterns similar to those experienced by a fly’s wings flapping through air.

For more about how the robot fly works, read the article Fly, Robot Fly