Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
"Popcorn-Driven Robotic Actuators," a recent paper co-authored by Steven Ceron, mechanical engineering doctoral student, and Kirstin H. Petersen, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, examines how popcorn's unique qualities can power inexpensive robotic devices that grip, expand or change rigidity.
"The goal of our lab is to try to make very minimalistic robots which, when deployed in high numbers, can still accomplish great things," said Petersen, who runs Cornell's Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab. "Simple robots are cheap and less prone to failures and wear, so we can have many operating autonomously over a long time. So we are always looking for new and innovative ideas that will permit us to have more functionalities for less, and popcorn is one of those."
[...] Since kernels can't shrink once they've popped, a popcorn-powered mechanism can generally be used only once, though multiple uses are conceivable because popped kernels can dissolve in water, Ceron said.
The paper was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Petersen said she hopes it inspires researchers to explore the possibilities of other nontraditional materials.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by KilroySmith on Friday August 03 2018, @08:35PM
>>> Is the mechanical energy you get even close to the heat energy you used to pop the corn?
That may not be the most important consideration. Imagine a machine where you need a certain impulse to perform a function - say, a punch to create a hole. If you have large quantities of electric energy available, you can simply use a solenoid and punch away. If, however, you only have low-level heat (say, 250 degrees or so) available, perhaps a popcorn-powered punch (running at a slower rate than the electric machine) is the right answer. It may not be as thermodynamically efficient, but he electric powered version ain't gonna punch anything if electricity isn't available...