Gepner et al., 2025 Device
What if tiny robots could get out of your printer? Yes, yours – for only about 500 euros could have one. Scientists create a true “revolution for engineers and artists.”
Smooth robotics mixes design and robot construction from flexible and “soft” materialslike plastics, silicone or even gels and liquids, explains a.
“Smooth robotics has a transformative potential for health care, manufacture and interactions man-machine, But progress in investigation and achieving commercial objectives is limited by the lack of standard and scalable manufacturing methods, ”they write in an Edinburgh University researchers who have created new small and autonomous robots.
“Our Flexible Open Source Printing Platform It addresses this gap, allowing the rapid and reliable production of ultra flexible soft robots with incorporated fluidic logic that can come out alone of the machine that made them, ”they explain.
In addition to being extremely effective, these printers are cheap and easy to build. The robot is printed from a soft plastic and fed by air pressure. Once printed, your umbilical air tube is detached and it goes out.
“It used to take years to find out how to print with these materials,” explained project engineer Maks Gepner.
“Using our new platform, anyone can now easily print things that were once impossible,” he says. “Without the strangulation of manufacture and conception that have long prevented it, we believe that the Soft Robotics is ready to have a big impact on the real world“.
“Ultimately, this platform establishes the foundations for widespread adoption and collaborative advancement in this domain,” says the document.
“By reducing technical and financial barriers, this work aims to democratize access to soft robotics,” write the authors published in Device This month.
The goal? “Accelerate innovation and promote new applications that can benefit society in the short and long term,” they guarantee.
