Inflatable squishy tubes might be used to construct mushy robots that transfer when air is pushed by means of them.
Robotic hands created from metallic ceaselessly find yourself crushing delicate objects like fruit when attempting to choose them up, so researchers typically experiment with making them out of gentler supplies. Pierre-Thomas Brun at Princeton College and his colleagues have discovered that mushy, inflatable tubes may do the trick.
The workforce crammed numerous moulds with a rubber-like materials known as polyvinyl siloxane that begins off liquid however turns into strong and elastic as time passes. Whereas the fabric was nonetheless fluid, the researchers pushed…