txchnologist:Robot Self-Assembles And Walks by Michael Keller Roboticists have developed a flat ma
txchnologist: Robot Self-Assembles And Walks by Michael Keller Roboticists have developed a flat machine that can fold itself into an operational form and take a walk. Built mostly from paper and polystyrene plastic that shrinks into a memorized shape when heated, the robot can assemble in around four minutes. It can crawl at roughly 2 inches per second and make turns. The work by Harvard and MIT engineers represents the first time that a robot has self-assembled and performed a function without humans needing to intervene. “Here we created a full electromechanical system that was embedded into one flat sheet,” said Harvard Microrobotics Lab researcher and doctoral student Sam Felton. “Imagine a ream of dozens of robotic satellites sandwiched together so that they could be sent up to space and then assemble themselves remotely once they get there–they could take images, collect data and more.” Read More Ah, this is a better view of this robot than the one I posted a bit ago. -- source link