Tech steals from Nature Again: Harvard Builds Flexible Robot That Can Crawl & Slither Under Glass

It's the latest prototype in the growing field of soft-bodied robots. Researchers are increasingly drawing inspiration from nature to create machines that are more bendable and versatile than those made of metal.

Harvard scientists have built a new type of flexible robot that is limber enough to wiggle and worm through tight spaces.

The Harvard team, led by chemist George M. Whitesides, borrowed from squids, starfish and other animals without hard skeletons to fashion a small, four-legged rubber robot that calls to mind the clay animation character Gumby.

"The unique ability for soft robots to deform allows them to go places that traditional rigid-body robots cannot," Matthew Walter, a roboticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in an email.

www.startribune.com...

I just thought this was a cool thing to share with everyone. Our constant advances in technology continue to excite me on a daily basis.
My personal belief is that technology will come to grow ever closer to biology. We will see more and more biological computers and more and more technology that has designs stolen right from everyday life.

A few months ago, I attended a nanotechnology conference held by Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. I heard from many high level scientists of the many breakthroughs we are making each day. Upon reading this article, one of the breakthrough I immediately remembered them speaking about was how we copied the design of a butterfly's wings to drastically improve technology for rain to "fall off" of a jacket. When they showed a zoomed in shot of a butterfly's wings, the complexity was astounding. The scientists exclaimed that they would have not came up with such an efficient way had they not glanced a peek at how "everyday life" had been doing it all this time.
Little things like this is what leads me to believe that technology will "borrow" more and more from biology, until both eventually become synonymous.

Did harvard model this thing after my ex wife?

reply to post by Helious


whats that suppose to mean, you miss banging your super flexible ex

Oh $h!t.... it's only a matter of time before this starts...




Here's the actual video of the little bot doing the deed.

I guess the limbo records are going to be shattered.

Originally posted by FugitiveSoul
Here's the actual video of the little bot doing the deed.

edit on 29-11-2011 by FugitiveSoul because: (no reason given)

They made it do the worm to get under that thing...so awesome. I cant wait to see them expand upon this, this may change the way robots are designed in the future. Making them out of lighter more flexible materials makes more sense than heavy metals.

reply to post by Openeye


I agree..... but I still wanna see AT-AT walkers in the future

I do hope that thing is hooked up to a computer and not just a guy with 5 plastic tubes in his mouth

This just goes to show that you never know what route technology was going to take. You would assume that the future held androids and metal robots clunking around till they got to Data.
Never figured it would go soft.

There were species in Star Trek that lived in bio ships. Its always amazing when stuff like this comes out that you see how insightful Roddeberry was.

Though for some reason, I find that little robot a tad creepy.

reply to post by nixie_nox


I think Bio ships and robots like data were around in popular SciFi way before Startrek used the ideas.

Lol I didn't even think of it as a "dirty" robot until all your comments!!
Very very true though.

And I also agree that just a few years ago, I would have imagined a future with everything being metal.
This definitely shows some insight that "mushy" materials are just as viable and could potentially overcome metal

Technology should reflect nature more often. It would make cities feel less like a prison and the human perspective would be less bound to hardliners and depressing architecture