[Saint Bob] would certainly encourage you to stick with it, but if you have not the patience, a CNC painting robot might be a ... to achieve just the right color, and the applicator itself ...

Video cameras see fast and far—all the way to the horizon. They can measure the texture and color of the ground, helping robots understand where it's safe to drive and alerting them to dangers.

This story appears in the May 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine. Banish your preconceptions of robots as stiff, herky-jerky metal machines. An “octobot” less than three inches wide is ...