This German gecko’s much more civilized-looking than that big slavering dog from Darpa.

Niklas Galler and Rudi Moosmeier’s Berlin-based shop n21 recently took a Japan Design Foundation gold prize for their C-Bot, a sporty, six-legged concept, which would use “gecko-substances” on the bottom of its pad feet to climb and inspect building walls using ultrasound. N21 developed the idea with Stanislav Gorb at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research. Gorb is investigating materials which imitate the wall-grabbing molecular adhesion used by the many species of geckos; the small lizards have microscopic hairs on the bottom of their feet which grab vertical surfaces.

The team produced a design model of the C-Bot, which would be designed about two feet across from leg to leg and powered by a fuel cell battery. Its insectoid form is sound: six-legged, or hexapodal, robots have big advantages in programming movement points. “The big advantage of this concept is that you wouldn’t need big scaffolding for inspection tasks any more,” Galler says. “That means less cost, and less inconvenience for tenants.”

But it’s early days. As is much in the fast-developing world of robotics, the C-Bot’s a concept, a model with no functionality built in yet. (Darpa’s nightmarish dog has a real leg up there, being able to pursue you relentlessly--I mean, run--across snow and ice).

But it’s quite a coup for a German shop known for headphones, ski gloves, and a slick concept city bike to be grabbing attention for robot design in robot-obsessed Japan.