Researchers have developed a humanoid robot that can change its shape and liquefy and reform itself. This allows the robot to navigate difficult areas without sacrificing its strength.

What are sea cucumbers?

Sea cucumbers are a type of invertebrate that lives in the sea.

What is an invertebrate?

An animal that doesn’t have a solid line of bones (backbone) running along its back.

The small robots were inspired by sea cucumbers.  Sea cucumbers have the ability to be both soft and hard. This allows them to overcome the limitations of robots that can only be one or the other.

As a result, they have the potential to provide greater utility in fields such as electronics assembly and even medical applications.

Key facts!

• “Giving robots the capacity to transition between liquid and solid states endows them with more usefulness,” say scientists.
• For example, small robots that can manoeuvre through spaces that are either too congested or too small for people to manage with normal tools have a wide range of possible applications.
• They could be used for precise repair work to the delivery of tailored medicine doses.
• Scientists took inspiration from animals such as sea cucumbers to create this humanoid robot.
• Sea cucumbers have the ability to change the rigidity of their tissues in order to increase their load capacity and limit physical damage.
• The researchers use gallium for their experiment.
• Gallium is a non-hazardous material.
• Furthermore, it is capable of easily shifting between soft and rigid states in ambient temperature.
• The scientists inserted magnetic particles into gallium.
• The magnetic particles are sensitive to an alternating magnetic field.
• This makes it possible to heat up the material and bring about the phase transition by means of induction.
• However, the magnetic particles also grant the robots the ability to move in response to the magnetic field and provide them with mobility.
• According to the lead researcher, “future studies should further explore how these robots could be employed within a biomedical environment.”

Youtube user “Deep Marine Scenes” shares facts about the sea cucumber.

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