Scientists create soft robots able to walk out of the printers which made them
The flexible, four-legged devices were developed using a new 3D printing system with an innovative method of upside-down printing.
Soft machines – made from compliant materials such as soft plastics – have huge potential for use in areas such as nuclear decommissioning, the biomedical sector and in space, researchers said.
A lack of scalable manufacturing and standardised design causes technical and financial barriers to the use of such devices, the scientists said.
The Edinburgh University team from sought to overcome these challenges by developing a low-cost, desktop 3D printing system for creating soft robots.
Their user-friendly setup can be assembled for under £400 using off-the-shelf parts.
The team demonstrated the capabilities of their new system by creating robots made from a soft plastic material and powered by air pressure.
Once printed, the robots are connected to a compressed air supply before walking out of the machine on which they were made.
The researchers believe this could pave the way for the use of intelligent soft robotic systems with no electronic parts.
Lead engineer on the project, Maks Gepner, said: 'It used to take years to figure out how to print using these materials.
'Using our new platform, anyone can now easily print things which were previously thought to be impossible.
'This is a game-changer for engineers and artists alike.
'Our hope is that this technology will help drive the next wave of research breakthroughs.
'Without the long-standing manufacturing and design bottlenecks holding it back, we believe soft robotics is ready to make a major real-world impact.'
Mr Gepner was supported on the project by fellow PhD student at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Jonah Mack, and lead academic Professor Adam A Stokes, head of the university's Institute for Bioengineering.
Building and operating their new system – known as the Flex Printer – requires little prior knowledge, with first-time users able to assemble it and begin making robots in just a few days, the team said.
They have made their designs publicly available to broaden access to soft robotic technologies and to help foster collaboration and improvements to the system.
The findings are published in the journal Device. The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
31-05-2025
- The National
Humanoid robots pose an ethical dilemma we've long prepared for
Earlier this week, an Edinburgh University lab exemplified the second option. Looking like a toad made from rubbery stickle bricks, it's a 'soft robot' – one that can (with a whiff of air pressure) walk out of its own 3D-manufacturing unit. They'll be useful for nuclear decommissioning, biomedicine and space exploration, says the lab. Great! Robots as curiously shaped facilitators of a cleaner, healthier, more ambitious world. Safely in the background. READ MORE: I've voiced ScotRail trains for 20 years and was replaced with AI without being told And then there are the humanoid robots (or HRs), currently cavorting all over your news feed. They're landing punches as Thai boxers in Hangzhou, China. They're playing badminton (admittedly with an extra two legs) in Zurich, Switzerland. A BMW factory, in the improbably named American town of Spartanburg, already has humanoid bipedal robots assembling parts on the production line (they're also starting in a Hyundai plant later this year). Chinese state-run warehouses in Shanghai have human operators manipulating HRs, getting them to fold T-shirts, make sandwiches and open doors, over and over again. All generating data they can learn from, to act effectively in the near future. Those who keep half an eye on radical technology may be a bit perplexed. Wasn't there some relief in the utter klutziness of robots, as they attempted to negotiate a few stairs, or turn a door knob? Didn't we share their pratfalls gleefully on social media – the bathos (if not hubris) that kept us relatively sane, in these accelerating times? Computers might thrash us at most cognitive tasks. But tying shoelaces, making pizza, wiping a child's nose? Not yet, and maybe not ever. Hail the embodied human, and their evolved physical capabilities! Well, there's a different track opening up. It's partly driven by the sci-fi imagination of the tech bros, East and West: most of these humanoid robots look like the rebellious droids in the 2004 movie I, Robot. But it's also an assumption that the new, actively-learning models of artificial intelligence can do for humanoid robots what they've done for language, visuals and coding. Which is to generate plausible and coherent behaviour in the physical world, as they generate the same for prose or images. Just to state the obvious: there's economic interest here. The target of these companies is a unit that can learn skills as required, flipping from task to task like a human worker. 'You can imagine a supply store has one, and that robot can be in the backroom depalletizing, cleaning, stocking shelves, checking inventory, just a huge range of things,' says Jonathan Hurst, co-founder and chief robot officer at Agility Robotics. Working 24/7, only stopping to be charged: 'That's where the real value comes in', concludes Hurst. READ MORE: Union slams Scottish companies using voice data without consent for new AI announcers The point of a humanoid-like machine seems obvious to most of these entrepreneurs. The world is already designed for humans, and maximum profitability will come from robots stepping competently and confidently into this environment. As the big business consultancies are predicting, the price for a working humanoid might descend to as low as $15,000 within the next few years, certainly lower as production scales up. That starts to become a viable business case for many enterprises – if the devices deliver on the performance promises currently being made. Let's assume (and it may be a major assumption) that physical robotics is on the same exponential curve as the computations of AI (and indeed directly rides on the latter's ascent). What that instantly opens up is a vast archive of myths and tropes about the fearful prospect of creating artificial humans, and how they'll live among us. We've been preparing for this ... READ MORE: From the editor: We're all sick of Farage. But we can't 'just ignore him' Greek mythology had Hephaestus making automatons – self-moving golden handmaidens with 'intelligence in their hearts'. Pygmalion the sculptor fell in love with his statue Galatea; Talos, a giant bronze automaton powered by ichor, guarded Crete. Across ancient India and China, still more defensive robots were imagined: the Buddhist text of Lokapannatti describes mechanical warriors that protected relics in subterranean cities. Back in Europe, the golem was raised to defend the Jewish ghettos. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein directly addresses our capacity to make humanoid subjects, and the ethics of the life we might share with them. And we mustn't forget that the term 'robot' itself comes from the Czech genius Karel Čapek, and his 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) – 'robota' being Czech for forced labour. So right at the core of this domain's name sits the main anxiety we have about it. What does it mean for us to create an entity that we intend will work (or fight) entirely on our behalf? It's one of the deeper, more civilisational arguments against a humanoid robot. Which is that it revives a master-slave framing from the worst of our past. An original cruelty of power that generates many others. The great auteur of human weirdness, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, articulated this well in his final movie, A.I. (posthumously realised by Steven Spielberg). The robot boy David – and we shouldn't forget the underlying Pinnochio reference – is eventually discarded: he was a substitute for a real boy, who eventually revives from his coma. Kubrick/Spielberg show how distorted human relations become – how resentful, harsh and violent – when these ever-more-perfect humanoid entities move among them. Their various roles of servitude do not protect them. The end of the movie delivers a severe judgement on human morality. The robot boy is rediscovered, by beautifully communal 'mechas', on an utterly drowned and terminated Earth. On David's request, the mechs revive a clone of the human 'mother' who pushed him out into the forest. They are able to share one last, gentle day together. READ MORE: How much has your MP claimed in expenses? See the full Scottish list here The movie never fails to break my heart. But given the ethical dilemma it presents – do we really want to be masters in a society of slaves, again? – we might hope that the humanoids keep failing to turn that doorknob. We really don't know what's coming. From the AI side, will developments in computation generate artificial consciousness, as well as artificial intelligence? By consciousness, I mean an entity which knows that it exists, experiences the world, has goals and desires and values. If that intentionality and interiority appears, and begins to talk with us, we may anticipate one of its explicit interests: the rights of robots, operating under conditions of servitude. How might we respond? I'd suggest A.I. the movie shows us how we shouldn't. Perhaps I'm operating in a very Western framework. As many scholars note, animist religions (whether Japanese or Chinese) do not sharply divide between the animate and inanimate. The robot in Japan is not necessarily monstrous, but can possess 'kokoro' (heart/mind). Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, flying about the comic strips of a traumatised Japan in the 1950s, was a great example of this. A moral child-robot with atomic powers, seeking justice. I duly note that the most-watched Netflix production this week is The Wild Robot. The machine ROZZUM (Unit 7134) lands on an island teeming with wildlife, to which it slowly begins to relate and co-exist with. Kept in a bubble from marauding, egoistic humans, Roz is able to establish a kinship with these fundamentally different entities, evoking the most profound ecological themes. Our sense of kinship with non-human animals should be obvious: the bass note of our responsibility to protect and honour the natural world. But should we prepare for kinship with these artificial entities? And should we ask whether casting them in humanoid form lays in more trouble than it's worth? Edinburgh's stickle brick frog is made from gel, wobbly but ready for its limited tasks. It may be a more tractable robot than the gleaming Optimals marching – or we may still hope, shuffling – out of Silicon Valley.
Scotsman
27-05-2025
- Scotsman
Why we (probably) shouldn't fear new giant leap forward for robot-kind
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... From R2-D2 to WALL-E and the Terminator, robots have captured our imagination for years but, in the real world, such machines have proved pretty thin on the ground. However scientists at Edinburgh University have apparently made a giant leap forward for robot-kind by inventing ones that can walk straight out of the 3D printer that made them. The printer costs less than £400 and first-time users can begin cranking out bots within days. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Lead engineer Maks Gepner said: 'Using our new platform, anyone can now easily print things which were previously thought to be impossible. This is a game-changer for engineers and artists alike... we believe soft robotics is ready to make a major real-world impact.' R2-D2 and C-3PO from the Star Wars films have fascinated generations for more than 40 years (Picture: Valerie Macon) | AFP via Getty Images Potential uses include in nuclear decommissioning, the biomedical sector and space. However, we suspect it won't be too long until a science fiction writer uses them to conjure up a dystopian tale of the world under attack by a robot army churned out from some wannabe Bond villain's basement.
The National
26-05-2025
- The National
World's first 'soft robots' developed by Edinburgh University
The palm-sized, four-legged robots are flexible and can walk straight off the 3D-printing machines that make them. Intelligent and soft robotic devices like these could have a huge impact on areas like nuclear decommissioning, the biomedical sector, and the space sector, according to researchers at the University of Edinburgh. (Image: University of Edinburgh) 'Our hope is that this technology will help drive the next wave of research breakthroughs,' said Maks Gepner, lead engineer on the project and PhD student at the university's Centre for Doctoral Training in Robotics and Autonomous Systems. 'It used to take years to figure out how to print using these materials. Using our new platform, anyone can now easily print things which were previously thought to be impossible. This is a game-changer for engineers and artists alike,' he added. Soft robotics and machines are inspired by biology and combined with engineering systems to create fluid, delicate devices, according to the researchers. These new robots are made solely from plastic and, once printed, are powered by compressed air supplied through a tube. READ MORE: Bus routes disrupted across west Scotland amid Stagecoach strike To develop the devices, the research team created a new 3D-printing system named Flex Printer, which can be assembled with off-the-shelf parts for less than £400. According to the researchers, the project aims to widen the access to these robotics by making them at a lower cost and in a more user-friendly way. The team at the University of Edinburgh seeks to increase the current limited real-world use of these robots, due to issues with standardisation, manufacturing processes, expenses, and expertise. To broaden access and use of the technology, the researchers have made their printing system publicly available. 'Little prior knowledge' is required for users to assemble it and make robots in just a few days, they added.
