The Amorphous Menace Creeps Forward

We here at Cosmic Variance have long been warning of the coming robot menace. Not only are they gaining consciousness, they keep developing new and creepy ways to move. Along those lines, here’s a new robot from Harvard that looks like an innocent piece of plastic, but is actually a silent ninja with a variety of interesting gaits. (Via Mariette DiChristina’s Twitter.)

Soft Robot Walking and Crawling

Researchers at George Whiteside’s lab explain that the idea came from observing squid and worms. Well, that’s comforting.

15 Comments

15 thoughts on “The Amorphous Menace Creeps Forward”

  1. When I first saw it I thought — squid. It looks like it is connected by air hoses only
    making me wonder what kind of feedback is available for learning?

  2. Pingback: World’s Strangest | The Amorphous Creeping Menace

  3. A shape with… / A gaze blank and pitiless as the Sun / Is moving its slow thighs… / And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches… to be born?

  4. About those South Korean prison guard robots: I doubt they’ll last two weeks — unless the inmates they’ll be guarding are highly untypical.

    Two things right off the bat: Fragile radio antenna, and nothing to protect the camera lenses. Just pull a sock over the lenses and they’re useless.

  5. I concur with the earlier comment about squid! It looks incredibly like a cephalopod – at least the end result of one when its ready for the plate!
    Absolutely incredible. Looking at the video it almost appears like it is thinking or deliberating in its movements or struggle to get to its destination.

  6. Quite cool — robots continue to advance in locomotive abilities. Of course, the key on one like this is when they’ll be able to unattach the air hoses, power, computer cables etc. that i assume all go through the connection. Tiny invertebrates can do all this already — with of course, a several billion year headstart, via evolution. But when will humans fully catch up to even them..?! Could be a while, yet. But i still take nothing away from what these researchers have achieved so far – very cool.

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