Modular eel robots combine soft and rigid components

News Summary

  • Certainly we’ve traditionally regarded soft robots as being something that exists in direct opposition to their more traditional counterparts.But the organic beings that inspire them are often some combination of rigid and soft.
  • “But they’re generally made of bespoke components, as opposed to these simple building blocks that are scalable.”Modularity also potentially means dramatically cutting down the assembly time required to build these robots.
  • It follows, then, that roboticists would do well to marry the two, in order to harness the best of both worlds.Image Credits: MITThis is one of the guiding principles behind MIT’s recent rethink of its underwater, snakelike aquabots.
  • Here’s an interesting comment from MIT’s Alfonso Parra Rubio, “Treating soft versus hard robotics is a false dichotomy.” For, I suppose, obvious reasons, thinking around technology tends to be a bit…binary.
  • The 60 pieces in this system were assembled in two days, rather than the two years that went into building RoboTuna.
Heres an interesting comment from MITs Alfonso Parra Rubio, Treating soft versus hard robotics is a false dichotomy. For, I suppose, obvious reasons, thinking around technology tends to be a bitbinar [+1676 chars]