Soft Robot Creepily Walks and Crawls

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By Becky Stern
Posted 2011/12/02 @ 10:00 am
Category Robotics

This freaky soft robot is being developed at Harvard. It uses compressed air to inflate elastomer limbs and can walk, crawl, and slither through all kinds of small spaces and slippery substances. The translucency of the soft robot’s body reminds me of underwater crawly things like shrimp.

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0 Responses to Soft Robot Creepily Walks and Crawls

Anonymous on December 2nd, 2011 at 10:17 am said:

Reminds me of a leach. Creapy indeed.

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Anonymous on December 2nd, 2011 at 10:33 am said:

I read something a while back about organic, piezo-electric polymer “muscles” developed at MIT. I bet you could do some cool stuff if you combined the two, like squeeze bladders to move air (or some other fluid) around.

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Anonymous on December 2nd, 2011 at 10:54 am said:

Hey, didn’t I post this very article on monday, on the Makezine forum site, you folks just woke up?

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- Becky Stern on December 2nd, 2011 at 10:58 am said:
  
  Actually many of us could probably use a nap, yes. =] Another blogger emailed it to me earlier in the week, yes, but I didn’t see your forum post! Will have to keep a closer eye on things over there. It’s a great robot!
  
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Anonymous on December 2nd, 2011 at 10:55 am said:

Heyyyyy, didnt I post this article to Makezine forums on monday.

Sleepy staff.

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Halfvast Conspirator on December 2nd, 2011 at 11:25 am said:

Shrimp don’t crawl around underwater, they swim. They also jump up into your kayak and can then be put on a hook to catch a fish.

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Adam Eyring on December 2nd, 2011 at 11:51 am said:

Make it larger, add small air pumps and an Arduino with batteries, and it could be autonomous

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Anonymous on December 3rd, 2011 at 5:48 am said:

That’s nice.
http://www.standardpcb.com

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A B on December 8th, 2011 at 3:55 am said:

Reminds me far to much of Metal Gear Solid 4. Perhaps this project and MGS4′s crawling animation have a common inspiration?

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