Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the rubbery-robots dept.

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2016/10/3d-printed-robots-shock-absorbing-skins

[This] week researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) will present a new method for 3-D printing soft materials that make robots safer and more precise in their movements—and that could be used to improve the durability of drones, phones, shoes, helmets, and more. The team's "programmable viscoelastic material" (PVM) technique allows users to program every single part of a 3-D-printed object to the exact levels of stiffness and elasticity they want, depending on the task they need for it.

For example, after 3-D printing a cube robot that moves by bouncing, the researchers outfitted it with shock-absorbing "skins" that use only 1/250 the amount of energy it transfers to the ground. "That reduction makes all the difference for preventing a rotor from breaking off of a drone or a sensor from cracking when it hits the floor," says CSAIL Director Daniela Rus, who oversaw the project and co-wrote a related paper. "These materials allow us to 3-D print robots with visco-elastic properties that can be inputted by the user at print-time as part of the fabrication process."


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @06:02AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @06:02AM (#410511)

    Sharp edges, corners, unnatural shapes in general, and grey finishes are unsexy. I'm saying "no" to this print-job and staying in my injection-molded sweetie's uncanny valley.