Make: Online : iRobot's Soft Morphing Blob 'Bot Takes Its First Steps

iRobot's Soft Morphing Blob 'Bot Takes Its First Steps

Wow! iRobot's soft, shape-shifting robot blob can roll around and change shape, and it will be able to squeeze through tiny cracks in a wall when the project is finished.... via jwz.

Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: Michael Biel on October 13, 2009 at 2:57 PM

I can see all the role players frothing on this one.

In mother Russia, dice roll you.

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Posted by: Apis on October 13, 2009 at 3:15 PM

Eeek

That's a really nasty looking robot. :O I hate how the nasty looking ones are always sponsored by the military!

The presentation with the notebook and pencil was nice. :)

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Posted by: Anomalous on October 13, 2009 at 6:46 PM

Shoggoth!

The concept sounds eerily similar to the idea of Lovecraft's Shoggoths: highly adaptable, amorphous drones which carry out construction based on commands from their masters.

That being said, I don't think this will be useful as a stand-alone robot. It would be more useful as a reconfigurable end-effector for manipulation or locomotion.

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Posted by: mambo on October 13, 2009 at 10:46 PM

Rover: Year One

Was Patrick prescient? Or does Irobot have some very dedicated Prisoner fans?

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Posted by: Sean Michael Ragan on October 15, 2009 at 9:30 AM

Interesting video and concept

The "jamming" thing is a cool idea for an actuator I'd never heard of before.

However, I'm pretty sure you could make a soccer-ball robot made out of selectively inflatable/deflatable bags roll across a desk whether there was a solid "sand" phase inside them or not. So I'm unsure about just how much the "jamming" effect they talk about really has to do with the locomotion they've achieved.

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