#self-folding

[machines2016]

Self-folding Origami Robot

http://shu21th.sakura.ne.jp/file/ICRA2015v26Final.pdf

The time has come for tiny little robots to crawl in your body. These tiny little buggers are about 1.7cm squared and are completely automated. They can fold, walk, swim, digging, float, even dissolve! A neodymium magnet is installed in the mini bot , so it can be controlled through a magnetic field. The goal of this thing is to help improve the medical field to reach places that we can’t. As of now, this has not made its way into anyone’s body yet but surely it will happen soon and revolutionize medical procedures. This thing is so practical because of its lightweight design and ability to complete over 100 bidirectional folds. Even better- it only needs a laser cutter for fabrication, making it highly accessible to be produced throughout the world. The only alarming part is that say these things don’t dissolve... you’ve got a robot parasite trapped inside of you. 

[sciencenetlinks]

New material can fold itself into hundreds of shapes

Self-folding polymer “memorizes” new shapes on the fly

Call it one small step for material science, one giant leap for origami. Researchers have created the first heat-reactive polymer material that can not only remember its current shape but also memorize new ones. The material—which currently requires high temperatures to change shape and reset its memory—could lead to a new generation of reusable self-folding materials that could be useful for everything from medical implants to shape-shifting electronics.

Self-folding materials aren’t new. The first generation of shape memory polymers folded into a single predetermined shape whenever they were heated. Later generations could be triggered by other stimuli, such as light, electrical charges, or a magnetic field. But they all relied on a property known as elasticity. When cool, their stringy polymers coil up. They straighten out into a new shape when heated, and then they bend right back to the default shape once they cool off again. In this way, they keep a “memory” of their original shape.

But elastic shape memory materials can only memorize two or three shapes. A 2005 Science paper offered a possible route to hundreds or even thousands: Rather than elasticity—the tendency for a material to come back to the same shape—the paper demonstrated a way to trigger a change in a material's plasticity, that is its ability to be reshaped.

Learn more.

[richmond77]

IR activated self folding 'origami'. Enough said.

- Aidan