Errymath: Octobot

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The octobot is an entirely soft, autonomous robot. A pneumatic network, 
pink, is embedded within the octobot's body and hyperelastic actuator 
arms, light blue. It's squishy like Silly Putty, wireless, battery-less 
and made for pennies by a 3-D printer<br />
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<span id="ext-gen49" style="font-size: 1.2em;">The
 latest revolutionary robot isn't the metallic, costly machine you'd 
expect: It's squishy like Silly Putty, wireless, battery-less and made 
for pennies by a 3-D printer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Meet
 Octobot. It looks like a tiny octopus and is designed to mimic that 
slithery creature to get through cracks and tight places, making it 
ideal as a rescue robot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">A
 team at Harvard University has created a robot — actually about 300 of 
them, since they are so cheap to make — that is opposite of the common 
view of a robot. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Octobot is soft, not hard. Flexible not rigid. It's not mechanical, nor electrical. It's powered by fluids. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The discovery is described, photographed and on video in the scientific journal Nature on Wednesday.</span></div>
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<span id="ext-gen51" style="font-size: 1.2em;">'It's
 sort of a hybrid between octopus and robot,' said study author Jennifer
 Lewis, a Harvard professor of biologically inspired engineering. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">'We've done something that nobody's been able to do.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Soft
 robotics are important because 'you've got these hard mechanical 
objects and soft humans' and when they interact — or collide — it can be
 a problem, Lewis said. </span></div>
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<img alt="It looks like a tiny octopus and is designed to mimic that slithery creature to get through cracks and tight places, making it ideal as a rescue robot. It can be printed cheaply by the 3-D printer with the most costly part a really small bit of platinum" class="blkBorder img-share" height="422" id="i-d4d209765cd7a596" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/24/article-urn:publicid:ap.org:da7786b5fbc84272b263024a867cf196-3z4eLzieBV2d0f8e018d62150e24-918_634x422.jpg" width="634" /><div class="share-pictures-overlay" id="share-pictures-2">
  
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It looks like a tiny octopus and is 
designed to mimic that slithery creature to get through cracks and tight
 places, making it ideal as a rescue robot. It can be printed cheaply by
 the 3-D printer with the most costly part a really small bit of 
platinum</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">That's not the painful case with Octobot, which fits in the palm of a hand. It's softer and more adaptive, she said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Here's
 a reality check: So far, all Octobot can do is wiggle a bit. It can't 
really even move along a table yet, so this is an 'extremely simple 
first step,' Lewis said. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Initially
 it was supposed to be a spider, but the team wanted both swimming and 
crawling and it looked more like an octopus, Lewis said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The
 idea is to make this something that is powered by a chemical reaction 
in fluids; fluid movement moves the arms and directs the robot's 
actions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">It can be printed cheaply by the 3-D printer with the most costly part a really small bit of platinum. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Aside from that it is essentially like bathroom caulk, 'a rubbery-type object,' Lewis said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Outside robotic experts raved about the new squishy machine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">In
 an email, Tufts University professor Barry Trimmer called it 'an 
ingenious approach to building and controlling a completely soft robot.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Daniela
 Rus at MIT said the discovery was what the soft robotics community has 
been looking for: 'The octopus robot is a first self-contained soft 
robot system whose components are all soft — it is a very beautiful 
machine.' <i>dailymail</i></span></div>
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                            <h3 class="wocc">
                                <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">ENGINEERS CREATE TINY MUTANT ROBOTIC STINGRAY </span></span>                            </h3>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Researchers
 at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences 
(SEAS) at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have shown off
 a new method for building bio-inspired robots using tissue engineering.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Based
 on the movement of batoid fish, which includes stingrays, the team has 
built a robo-ray measuring just 0.6 inches (16 millimetres) long and 
weighing just 0.4 ounces (10 grams).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">They
 crafted neutrally-charged gold skeletons that mimic the stingray's 
shape, which were overlaid with a thin layer of stretchy polymer to give
 it flexibility and shrug off the water.</span></div>
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<img alt="The robot, created by Harvard University, is based on the movement of batoid fish, which include stingrays. It is guided by light. Powered by rat heart solar cells the light guides it gracefully along the water." class="blkBorder img-share" height="507" id="i-2976206437c94283" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/07/07/23/360E40D900000578-3679125-image-a-4_1467928900634.jpg" width="962" /><div class="share-pictures-overlay" id="share-pictures-3">
  
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The robot, created by Harvard 
University, is based on the movement of batoid fish, which include 
stingrays. It is guided by light. Powered by rat heart solar cells the 
light guides it gracefully along the water.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Along
 the top of the robotic ray, the researchers strategically aligned rat 
muscle cells, called cardiomyocytes. They used around 200,000 
cardiomyocytes in total.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">When stimulated, the cardiomyocytes contract the fins downward to begin the wave movement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Because
 stimulating the fins to turn in an upward motion would require a second
 layer of cardiomyocytes, the researchers instead designed the gold 
skeleton in a shape that stores some downward energy, which is later 
released as the cells relax, allowing the fins to rise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The
 muscle cells were genetically engineered to respond to light cues, 
enabling the researchers to control the robot's movement using pulses of
 light. <i>dailymail </i></span></div>
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A robot that's a real softie: 'Squishy' Octobot

The octobot is an entirely soft, autonomous robot. A pneumatic network, pink, is embedded within the octobot's body and hyperelastic...

Errymath

A robot that's a real softie: 'Squishy' Octobot

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