Josh Conviser- Writer

Untethered Miniature Origami Robot Self-folds, Walks, Swims, and Degrades

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This little origami-bot can self-fold from a piece of paper, drive around on water or land driven by a magnetic field and dissolve in acetone. The researchers goal in the mid-term future is an autonomous origami bot with self-folding sensors, operating inside your body.

IEEE has the story:

At ICRA 2015 in Seattle yesterday, researchers from MIT demonstrated an untethered miniature origami robot that self-folds, walks, swims, and degrades. That’s the title of their paper, in fact, and they delivered on all of those promises: from a flat sheet with a magnet on it, their robot folds itself up in just a few seconds, is immediately ready to zip around on land or water driven by magnetic fields, and then when you’ve run out of things to do with it, drive it into a tank of acetone and it’ll dissolve. This is the first time that a robot has been able to demonstrate a complete life cycle like this, and eventually, it’ll be doing it inside your body.

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