A Miniature Robot That Can Fold, Dissolve Itself Like An Origami, Run and Carry Stuff

In real life, robots are supposed to be huge, metallic, heavy and circuit-y looking, right? Surely, this really small and foldable... thing isn't a robotic? Yet it is.

Recently, Shuhei Miyashita, Steven Guitron, Marvin Ludersdorfer, Cynthia R. Sung, and Daniela Rus from MIT and TU Munich showcased a tiny robot that can fold itself from a sheet of thin material.

In addition to that, the tiny robot can walk around and can, despite its miniature size, carry loads. It can also swim. Lastly, it has the capability to dissolve completely when it throws itself in a pool of acetone.

The robot looks like an aluminum paper. It is silvery and as thin as a paper. It was presented in the ICRA 2015 last May 27, 2015 in Seattle.

The robot, which is controlled by electromagnets, can build itself in a few seconds and then follow signals on a surface or inside another object. It can carry lightweight stuff and even push small objects around for it to move. Despite that, the miniature robot's strength does not include agility and needs a lot of external support to move untethered. The MIT researchers' origami robot is pretty unique, though, and is a new and one of a kind system.

Though, some netizens question if this is really a "robot". "So it's not a robot at all, just a shrinky dink with a magnet inside? It has no brain and it's built very specifically. Then it is pulled around with a magnet?" someone commented on Spectrum.

Another chimed in on the comment that "[t]he mechanical movement is driven by an external magnetic field causing it to vibrate. It's not a robot".

With that comment, the electromagnet in the miniature isn't, indeed, the one who is making the robot move, though. The electromagnet just vibrates in different directions and a magnet that's already inside the robot keeps it constantly movie in one direction. Thus, the capability to walk or run on a table and swim in water. Also, the small origami robot is made of plastic as of now. Though, the MIT researchers say that it also possible to use biodegradable and other kinds of materials.

The origami miniature robot is still in the prototype stage but it is in deed promising in the world of robotics. Their robot is obviously still just a prototype. It can only do stuff that won't make world change but this is just a step for the MIT researchers. They plan to improve it and make it better.