Tuesday, October 13, 2009 Beware the Blob 'Bot!

If you've run out of nightmare fuel, how about a robotic scrotum creeping under the door? From IEEE Spectrum via Wired:

iRobot's Shape-Shifting Blob 'Bot Takes Its First Steps

Tue, October 13, 2009

This is by far one of the coolest and weirdest robot prototypes we at IEEE Spectrum have ever seen.

Meet iRobot's soft, shape-shifting robot blob. It rolls around and changes shape, and it will be able to squeeze through tiny cracks in a wall when the project is finished.

(Skip the first 1:50 minutes of the video above to see the blob in action.)

Researchers from iRobot and the University of Chicago discussed their palm-sized soft robot, known as a chemical robot, or chembot, at IROS yesterday. It's "the first demonstration of a completely soft, mobile robot using jamming as an enabling technology," they write in a paper.

The concept of "jamming skin enabled locomotion" is explained quite nicely in the video. The polymer used for the bot’s stretchy skin is off-the-shelf silicon two-part rubber.

By controlling the parts of the blob that "inflate," the researchers can make it roll.

The video shows the project as it was about a year ago. The current stage has a bit different design and is moving toward the ability to include sensors or even connect different blobs together, but those details are sketchy.

When asked about the usefulness of such a bot, iRobot researcher Annan Mozeika promptly answered, "to squeeze into small holes." And who wants to do that? DARPA, of course. End of questions.

DARPA is the agency that develops new military technology for the Department of Defense. I have no idea what they need a ScroBot for, but I am suddenly fearful for my "small holes".

The video mentioned in the article is posted below. Check it out to see the ScroBot in disturbing, throbbing action, and to learn that it's apparently powered by a 20-sided die.