Hard materials don’t always work well in robotics. Here, researchers build soft actuators that can bend, curl, and tighten in order to manipulate objects. They begin by injecting liquid elastomer Keep reading
Tag: robotics
Adhering Through Vibration
This little robot relies on vibration to generate its adhesion. By vibrating its flexible disk, it generates low pressure in the thin air layer between the disk and the surface. Keep reading
Watery Suction Enables Spiderman-Like Climbing
Spiderman makes it look easy, but sticking to surfaces with enough force to climb them is a challenge at the human scale. These researchers tackled the problem with a new Keep reading
Fast-Switching Multi-Material 3D Printer
For 3D printers to reach their potential, they need to handle more than one material and be able to swap quickly and seamlessly between them. That’s a tall order given how different Keep reading
Martian Bees, Canopies, and Dandelion Seeds
The latest FYFD/JFM video is out! May brings us a look at the incredible flight of dandelion seeds, numerical simulations that reveal the flow above forest canopies, and a look Keep reading
Bees, Squid, and Oil Plumes
It’s time for another JFM/FYFD collab video! April’s video brings us a taste of spring with research on how bees carry pollen, squid-inspired robotics, and understanding the physics of underwater Keep reading
The Elastic Leidenfrost Effect
Drop some hydrogel beads in a hot frying pan and they’ll bounce, hiss, and screech. Normally, if you drop a ball, it bounces to ever smaller heights until it comes Keep reading
Soft Robots
A research group at MIT has created a new class of fast-acting, soft robots from hydrogels. The robots are activated by pumping water in or out of hollow, interlocking chambers; Keep reading
Shark Wakes
Volumetric imaging of swimming spiny dogfish, a type of shark, shows that their distinctively asymmetric tails produce a set of dual-linked vortex rings with every half beat of their tail. The Keep reading
Flow Viz of a Locust
Smoke visualization in a wind tunnel reveals the airflow over a flying locust. Researchers are unraveling the aerodynamics of insect flight in order to produce better Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) Keep reading