Some 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the nearest sea, engineering students at Switzerland’s ETH Zurich are hard at work on cutting-edge robots that may change the way the world’s oceans are studied.

“Eve” the robotic fish swings its silicone tail side to side, powered by pumps hidden inside, as it glides fluidly through Lake Zurich’s chilly water, where it is being tested by SURF-eDNA. The student-led group has spent the past two years building a school of soft robotic fish – of which Eve is the latest.

Image: Hiroko Yoshii, Unsplash