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

[RUSSO]

We Are the Borg. You Will be Assimilated. Resistance is Futile, humans...

"An Untethered Miniature Origami Robot that Self-folds, Walks, Swims, and Degrades," by Shuhei Miyashita, Steven Guitron, Marvin Ludersdorfer, Cynthia R. Sung, and Daniela Rus from MIT and TU Munich, was presented at ICRA 2015 in Seattle.

Origami Robot Folds Itself Up, Does Cool Stuff, Dissolves Into Nothing

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....

Full read: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/origami-robot-folds-itself-up-does-cool-stuff-dissolves-into-nothing