A mechanical hexapod called Aqua is the latest in a series of seagoing robots being developed by a McGill research group. The goal? To develop an underwater vehicle that can autonomously explore and collect data in aquatic environments while surviving the harsh saltwater conditions and often turbulent waters of the open sea. Aqua's builders are tackling one of the most challenging topics in robotics: integrating vision and locomotion into an amphibious machine that can determine what it is "seeing," where it is, and where it is going.