Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears! There's no reason to continue pressing poor, slow snails into the sordid business of racing. There's an alternative: charming little robotic tape measures that move in much the same way.

Dreamed up by Keiko Takahashi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, the Meter Crawlers use their tape to pull themselves along. Each one sticks its tape out centimeters at a time, and then reels it back in to advance ever so slowly.

Her Meter Crawlers even resemble snails, what with their plastic, shell-like housing.

You can see 'em in action in the video below.

Meter Crawler, via MAKE, via BotJunkie