A team of researchers at Harvard have developed the Octobot, the first autonomous soft robot with no rigid components. The octopus-shaped robot is made of a silicone body and runs on a 50% hydrogen peroxide fuel that flows through a microfluidic circuit where it reacts with platinum to cause the robot to perform a unique dance.
Although the Octobot has no purpose other than dancing, it is an example of what could be possible in the future through the use of soft materials and techniques like 3D printing.
The Octobot team published a paper describing their creation in Nature.
Meet the ‘octobot’, the first self-contained robot made exclusively of soft, flexible parts https://t.co/EzPlgo78nQhttps://t.co/1p6r2eeQ8Q
— Nature News&Comment (@NatureNews) August 24, 2016
via Nature
