It is quite possible that no matter how much a part of our daily lives they become, robots will always be cool. But this robot is particularly bad ass, and may it be noted, kind of adorable, until of course it's used as a drone.

Leif Ristroph, an applied mathematician at New York University, tells the Washington Post that he had a dream to build "the simplest possible" flying machine. He started by gluing together several tubes of carbon fiber to create a sphere with four wings attached to it in the fashion of a propeller. The propeller isn't like the kind seen on say, a helicopter, but is more akin to the coils that let a jellyfish swim, hence it being dubbed a 'flying' jellyfish.

Without any circuity, sensors, or battery source it can stay upright in the air because of the way the wings are arranged. It's a design that even its investor can't fully explain. This isn't the first time a machine that can pull off such feats of balance and stability has been invented, but the flying jellyfish stands out because it features wings that don't work like traditional wings. Researchers have made an art of mastering the minute in wing mechanics, but as Ristroph says, "Everyone else is building their robots to copy [how real birds and insects use wings]." Ristroph wanted to "think of new ways to fly."

The flying jellyfish — just one in a fleet of other ideas of Ristroph and his colleagues — represents an advancement in flying machines. Unlike others designed to emulate insects, it doesn't require a computer or fins to stay afloat, which is part of why it's so light. It's also, in Ristroph's thinking, going to be very cheap, with each flying jellyfish going for about fifty cents a pop. Perfect for a toy or a darling little drone.