The U.S. military needs tunneling robots, NASA needs tunneling robots, public works departments need tunneling robots, FEMA needs tunneling robots and so does law enforcement, FBI, Border Patrol, DEA, DHS and The ATF. But, how come no one has ever made a good, reliable, self-contained and state-of-the-art tunneling robot?

It seems with all the robotics competitions going on that someone would have designed and built a good tunneling robot by now. This subject recently came up in an online think tank and one member started asking questions; Size, how large of a hole is needed? How long? What kind of maneuverability would be needed?

What would be good tunneling robot look like? I propose it looked like a football and would have a gyro inside to keep it up right. Be cutting mechanism would be in the front and there would be spikes that came up the side which would push into the dirt and move the football foreword as it turned the dirt like the Viking ships with oars.

Of course this is a very interesting subject as there is no right answer, as long as the tunneling robot works it doesn't matter really what it looks like. It could be in the shape of a snake it could be in the shape of one of the original Chinese firecrackers with a cone front and a cylinder side. As a matter-of-fact it doesn't really matter what looks like, as long as it works. Consider this in 2006.