An Incredible Biohybrid Tethered Starfish Shaped Soft Robot Powered by Embedded Mushrooms

Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Florence built an incredible biohybrid tethered starfish-shaped soft robot that is powered by embedded Pleurotus eryngii (king oyster mushrooms). The fungi were allowed to grow within the electronics that built the robot and their conductivity was proven during a live demonstration. This is one of two robots from the study.

In creating a pair of new robots, Cornell researchers cultivated an unlikely component, one found not in the lab but on the forest floor: fungal mycelia. By harnessing mycelia’s innate electrical signals, the researchers discovered a new way of controlling “biohybrid” robots that can potentially react to their environment better than their purely synthetic counterparts.