While engineering programmable matter, they also invented a motor that holds its position without power.
Posted 11.30.2012 at 6:30 pm
7 Comments
Specially designed motors are key
MIT
MIT is calling this tiny device the Swiss army knife of the robotics world, though that doesn't really seem to do it justice. Developed at the university's Center for Bits and Atoms, the milli-motein is a caterpillar-sized robot that can be folded into assorted shapes, signaling a future in which devices shapeshift into almost anything imaginable.
The milli-motein is made of metal rings and strips. The key innovation: specially designed motors that can be instructed to move at certain angles and can hold their own position even with the power switched off. “It’s effectively a one-dimensional robot that can be made in a continuous strip, without conventionally moving parts, and then folded into arbitrary shapes," Neil Gershenfeld, head of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, says. The design was inspired by proteins, which naturally assume various shapes. (Milli-motein is a mashup of "protein" and "millimeter.")
The researchers are hoping to make the structure stronger, so that it can be on par with more expensive gearing systems. This tiny Tranformer could then lead to robotic systems that can reconfigure themselves to perform any function needed. It's more futuristic that fixed-function robotics, and it could be cheaper to produce, as well, they say.
[MIT News]
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The conclusion of the video is the best part in any research project: While attempting to overcome the requirements set by DARPA, you invent a solution (an engine that can hold it's position without power) that can help many other industry. This is why these kinds of projects need to be funded. It's worth it! :)
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In space, no one can hear a tree fall in the forest.
Insert a tiny solar panel and it will even recharge itself while it remains "idle"...
Future devices will be required by law to be self powered when idle so that they will not be an energy drain on the grid... Imagine if cars burned fuel while parked, it makes no sense to have things plugged in sucking power, especially when the technology exists to have them self powered!
Every stationary thing that has access to light should be helping to charge the grid as much as possible, even if the Utilities don't get to sell as much energy as they do now!
CaptD
I don't think you realize how expensive and inefficient current solar tech is. a panel smell enough for this bot would not produce enough power to do anything useful, and cost a fortune. Putting solar panels everywhere sounds good, but they need direct sunlight to produce significant power, so unless you want to stick your tv in front of a south facing window, a solar panel would be a waste of time, and increase the cost by about $100 or more, just for something like a 36 inch tv.
Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind. Albert Einstein
You humans are so paranoid. If not pulling the plug on us to make sure we are dead, now you invent an automated way of having instantaneous robotic rigor mortis. I suppose you all have watched to many Terminator movies, lol.
Oh Good, I was wondering when they would come out with Transfomers. pity it took them this ling
This is a computer/motor controlled version of the Rubik Snake (also known as the Rubik Twist).