Now I know, robot snakes aren’t by far new. Snakes, with their sleek bodies, lack of appendages, and smooth movement, have been the inspiration for useful robots all around. For example, this little robot. But now, scientists at Carnegie Mellon’s Biorobotics Lab have taken it a step further with a robot snake that can wrap Read more...
In general, robot arms are usually bulky and heavy, which sometimes makes them impractical in usage. However, this new robotic arm made by iRobot will change it all. This new robotic arm, called AIRarm, is fully inflatable, and only weighs about half of a pound. However, it is able to carry five whole pounds, and Read more...
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) has been working on a way to grasp onto asteroids to hold on while drilling into them. Ideally, you want some system that can reliably anchor a robot to an uneven surface while simultaneously providing enough downforce in microgravity to allow for sample collection, and this is where the microspines come Read more...
The title may be a little misleading, while this robot does make sushi, it is in fact a complex robotic hand with interesting technology to actuate it. Skip to the middle to see the pneumatic actuators for the finder tips. The bladders are inflated and deflated to provide the actuation needed to grasp the delicate food without crushing Read more...
The curious looking gripping mechanism above draws inspiration from geckos. Large surface area on a gecko’s feet allows it to climb vertical walls by taking advantage of electrostatic forces. For example, the video below shows a robot with an electrostatic “foot” that climbs up a vertical wall This new project uses the same premise to Read more...
Jamming Gripper + Elephant Trunk = Awesome still in the early stages of development, this concept is trying to combine one of the more dexterous animal manipulators with the jamming technology we have seen popularized through the coffee ground filled balloon grippers. The arm is made up of a bunch of different jamming segments stuck together Read more...
