What's that photo of? Self-folding origami! Well, kind of. The Soft Robotics "Programmable Matter" developed by researchers at the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory under Professor Robert Wood consists of a sheet material lined with actuators. Which essentially means the darn things can fold themselves up in a predetermined way.
The HML guys' terse description of the project tells you why they went into microrobotics research and not, say, P.R.:
We are creating multi-functional materials with embedded sensing, actuation, communication, and computation. Our programmable matter sheets are currently self-reconfigurable and capable of forming multiple user-defined structural components and objects.
Sure the technology's in a primitive state, but man, think about how wicked this could be: You get a flat-pack in the mail, pull it out of the envelop, push the button, and boom--new iPhone! ...And if that's still quite some years off, well, I'd settle for a cool little crane.
via boing boing
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