Robots inspired by origami can fold selves, walk away

[Buster's Uncle]

Robots inspired by origami can fold selves, walk away
AFP
By Kerry Sheridan  31 minutes ago



This undated photo courtesy of Seth Kroll, Wyss Institute shows the self-folding crawling robot in three stages (AFP Photo/Seth Kroll)



Washington (AFP) - It starts out laying flat, like a sheet of paper. Then it springs up, almost lifelike, and folds into moveable parts much like origami art. And then it crawls away.

This new kind of robot could someday be used in space exploration, to slide into collapse sites to aid search and rescue, or to speed up manufacturing on assembly lines, experts said Thursday.

While this particular machine's march to the world market is still years away, the report in the journal Science said the latest advances open the way to a new frontier in personalized robotics.

Not only is the material cheap -- it cost just $100 -- it could be easily reprogrammed from one task to another, said Sam Felton, a researcher at Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

"In the same way that if you have a Word document and you want to change few words, you just reprint it at your home computer, you could take a robot's digital plan, change a few things and reprint it," Felton told reporters.

The thin robot is built of layers, including paper, a middle layer of copper etched into a network of electrical leads, and an outer layer of shape-memory polymer that folds when heated.

Once the batteries and motor are activated, the robot folds itself much like a child's Transformer toy, and scuttles away like a crab.

Felton said the total start-up costs for equipment used to make the robot were around $11,000.

The origami machine itself cost $80 for batteries and motor, and $20 for materials.

"If we were to build a new one it would cost another $100," he said.

Other potential uses could include self-assembling furniture, or even shelters that build themselves in disaster zones.

"The exciting thing here is that you create this device that has computation embedded in the flat, printed version," explained Daniela Rus, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

"And when these devices lift up from the ground into the third dimension, they do it in a thoughtful way."

The team hopes that commercial uses for the robots will grow in the years to come. In the meantime, its early tasks and functions may be incremental in nature.

"Since we are an academic lab, we try and come up with the most interesting and challenging problems, not necessarily the most practical," said Felton.

"In space, maybe it would be too hard to build a completely self-folding satellite but maybe you would just have the solar panels deploy using shape memory materials, and that would be a very easy and short-term addition."

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Research at Harvard, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

The researchers plan to present their work at the Sixth International Meeting on Origami in Science, Mathematics and Education in Tokyo from August 10-13.


http://news.yahoo.com/robots-inspired-origami-fold-selves-walk-away-183440635.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Real-Life Transformer: Robotic Bug Springs to Life
LiveScience.com
By Elizabeth Palermo, Staff Writer  41 minutes ago



The self-folding robot in three stages of assembly.



The latest advancement in robotics may not look like much — just a few small batteries attached to a flat sheet of paper — but there's much more to this new contraption than meets the eye.

If you look long enough, you'll see the sheet of paper start to move, transforming itself with a few crisp folds. First, legs emerge, and then batteries are lifted off the ground, onto the back of what now looks like a small robotic bug. Within minutes, the futuristic insect is moving, crawling around on four legs and turning as if it knows just where it's headed.

This real-world Transformer, developed by computer and electrical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, could change the field of robotics. Researchers say the self-assembling robot represents a new way to build bots, a process that will make it easier to churn out complex machines in less time.


Origami robots

The new robots were inspired in part by origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. While they look thin enough to be made from a single sheet of paper, the bots actually consist of five layers of materials, including paper, copper and a shape-memory polymer that folds when heated to more than 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius). The middle, copper layer contains a network of electrical wires that deliver heat to the robot's joints, initiating a complex folding process.

"We activate the folding using embedded circuits, which produce heat locally at each hinge," said Sam Felton, a research assistant in Harvard's microbiotics lab, who helped develop the new robot.

This method lets the robot fold itself one step at a time, which is important because the researchers programmed the bot to build upon each previous movement, Felton said. First, it makes one fold, then another.

Once the robot is all folded up into its buglike shape, it seems to move as if by magic. In reality, though, it's propelled by two tiny motors, which are connected to the batteries carried on the bug's back, the researchers said. Also on the robot's back is a microprocessor, programmed with a unique algorithm developed by computer scientists at MIT. The microprocessor tells the robot what to do — what shape to take and how to move.


Functional folds

The robot's ability to fold itself up isn't just a cool trick; it's also an extremely useful quality, said Robert Wood, a professor of engineering at Harvard University who helped develop the new robot. Wood said he first became interested in origami-like folding when he realized it might help solve some of the common problems of manufacturing devices on a small scale.

Folding allows the manufacturers of small, complex machines, such as robots, to avoid the nuts-and-bolts approach traditionally used to assemble larger machines, Wood said. It also reduces the cost of building these machines. Both of these benefits make the origami production process a good fit for robotics, said Daniela Rus, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT who also worked on the self-assembling robot.

"Today, it costs a lot in time and money to make a new robot," Rus told reporters in a press briefing. "Our big dream is to really make the fabrication of robots fast and inexpensive."

The researchers said that this new method of building machines could serve as a form of 3D printing for robotics, turning a complex manufacturing process into something that's both more accessible and less expensive for the average user.

The researchers said they also envision the folding machines filling some crucial roles in the real world.

"I believe there's a tremendous potential to use these methods to build machines for situations where you need deployability, for example space exploration, or dangerous missions such as search and rescue, or hazardous environment exploration," Wood said.

But before these tiny bots travel into space or other harsh environments, the researchers will need to experiment with stiffer and more-durable materials. The engineers also said they're looking into the use of materials that can also unfold themselves, something shape-memory polymers, once heated, can't do.

The new research was published online today (Aug. 7) in the journal Science.


http://news.yahoo.com/real-life-transformer-robotic-bug-springs-life-184034374.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Robotic helpers? Scientists tout cheap robot that assembles itself
Reuters
By Richard Valdmanis  2 hours ago



BOSTON (Reuters) - Scientists say they have developed a low-cost robot prototype made from paper and children's trinkets that can assemble itself and perform a task without human help.

The technology could eventually lead to affordable 'robotic helpers' for use in everything from household chores to exploring space, according to the team of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers who developed it.

"Getting a robot to assemble itself autonomously and actually perform a function has been a milestone we've been chasing for many years," said Rob Wood of Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The prototype was jointly announced by Harvard and MIT on Thursday.

The team's robot prototype borrows mechanical principles from the ancient Japanese paper-folding art of origami, as well as from Shrinky Dinks - plastic children's toys that shrink into predictable shapes when heated.

The prototype was made from a flat sheet of composite paper, embedded with Shrinky Dink bits, hinges, motors, batteries, and a microcontroller. Once the batteries are placed in the robot, it begins to fold into shape and perform its task.

In this case, it crawls away at a speed of one-tenth of a mile per hour. But the engineers have high hopes the low-budget robots will eventually become more useful.

Wood said they could one day be printed on 3D printers, sold in stores for $100, and programmed to do things such as sweep your porch or detect gas leaks in your neighborhood.

"You would be able to come in, describe what you need in fairly basic terms, and come back an hour later to get your robotic helper," Wood said.

They could also be used in space.

"Imagine a ream of dozens of robotic satellites sandwiched together so that they could be sent up to space and then assemble themselves remotely once they get there," said Sam Felton, a Harvard Ph. D student who co-authored the research. "They could take images, collect data, and more."

Felton said the prototype robots still have some problems, though, including a propensity to burn up before they have folded into shape. "There is a great deal that we can improve based on this foundational step," said Felton.

(Editing by James Dalgleish)


http://news.yahoo.com/robotic-helpers-scientists-tout-cheap-180344295.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Scientists make cheap, fast self-assembling robots
The true transformers: Cheap and fast robots can now assemble themselves from sheet of paper
Associated Press
By Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer  7 hours ago



This undated handout image provided by the journal Science shows a self-folding crawling robot in three stages. In what may be the birth of cheap, easy-to-make robots, researchers have created complex machines that transform themselves from little more than a sheet of paper and plastic into walking automatons. Borrowing from the ancient Japanese art of origami, children’s toys and even a touch of the “Transformers” movies, scientists and engineers at Harvard and MIT created self-assembling, paper robots. They are made out of hobby shop materials that cost about $100. After the installation of tiny batteries and motors, the paper robot gets up, folds itself into the proper shape and is ambling across the table in just four minutes. (AP Photo/Seth Kroll, Wyss Institute - Science)



WASHINGTON (AP) -- In what may be the birth of cheap, easy-to-make robots, researchers have created complex machines that transform themselves from little more than a sheet of paper and plastic into walking automatons.

Borrowing from the ancient Japanese art of origami, children's toys and even a touch of the "Transformers" movies, scientists and engineers at Harvard and MIT created self-assembling, paper robots. They are made out of hobby shop materials that cost about $100. After the installation of tiny batteries and motors, a paper robot rises on four stumpy legs and starts scooting in a herky-jerky manner. It transforms from flat paper to jitterbugging four-legged robot in just four minutes.

This small lightweight type of robot could explore outer space and other dangerous environments, and get into cramped places for search-and-rescue missions, researchers said. But that's just the start of what may be a long-envisioned robotic revolution.

This eventually could be as technology-changing as the three-dimensional printer, said experts unconnected with the study and Harvard robotics researcher Sam Felton, who is lead author of the paper published Thursday in the journal Science.

Felton and study co-author Daniela Rus of MIT say they see a time when someone who wants a dog-walking robot would go to a store that has specialized equipment to make the device — "some sort of robo-Kinkos," Felton said.

And eventually the technology could produce more complex machines.

"In principle it will be possible to say, 'I want a robot to play chess with me,' and generate a machine that has the computational abilities to play chess with you," Rus said.

Today it costs a lot of money to build a robot, but this method is fast, cheap and specialized, Rus said.

"This is a simple, flexible and rapid design process and a step toward the dream of realizing the vision of 24-hour robot manufacturing," Rus said.

These robots aren't quite Transformers of movie and cartoon fame. Once they assemble themselves automatically with heat-activated hinges that allow the folding, there are no more changes, Rus and Felton said.

The robots themselves start out a bit smaller than a normal 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of paper. Off-the-shelf batteries and motors are embedded at a cost of about $80. Altogether, the early machines researchers made, along with the equipment to build them, cost less than $1,000 apiece, Felton said.

The robots, which the researchers did not name, are about 6 inches long, 6 inches wide, and about 2 inches tall. They weigh less than 3 ounces. They move about 2 inches per second. But they can be made bigger or smaller, with some limitations, Felton said.

He said the way heating activates the hinges was inspired by the children's toy line Shrinky Dinks, which shrivel and fold when put in the oven.

Robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks, an MIT emeritus professor who wasn't part of the research, said this could be close to other momentous changes in technology, such as the first 3-D printers or even 1947's ENIAC early computer.

"Lots more people will join in working on these techniques, each making incremental progress and decades from now we'll wonder why it took so long to get where we'll then be with it," Brooks said in an email.

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Online:

The journal Science: http://www.sciencemag.org


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