Imagine a future like this. Instead of cars, people drive robot cheetahs around. Roads are outdated. Why drive a car on the road when you can hop on a cheetah and bound across the mountains?

Researchers at MIT found out exactly how cheetahs move. Then they built one of their own. The bot weighs the same as a real cheetah—about 70 pounds. It can run 10 miles per hour. It can jump 16 inches into the air. That’s not nearly as impressive as a real cheetah. But it’s not bad for a machine that uses less power than a microwave!

God’s design is perfect. He made every animal with a different gait, or way of walking and running. If even one cheetah paw stayed on the ground for the wrong amount of time, the cheetah wouldn’t run the same way. Scientists had to take that into account. If they wanted their cheetah to run well, their math had to be perfect.

It took five years to build the cheetah bot. Even then, it was only a little like the creature God spoke into existence. Researchers think the robot cheetah may someday use its quick legs for rescue operations. Some even hope robots like it will replace cars. Wouldn’t that be something to see!