Meet MIT bot which transforms into a boat, glider or wheel

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are making our geeky childhood dreams come true by building real-life Transformers-style robots.

The robot has a shape-shifting ability that allows the cuboid bot to smoothly transform between different forms of locomotion, depending on what task it needs to carry out.

Dubbed “Primer,” the robot uses sheets of smart material which fold into specific shapes when controlled by magnets — to allow the robot to walk, roll, sail, and glide.

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“We’ve developed a system of fabricating robots that lets you have a simple robotic body that you can add special accessories to, which give it the ability to do a wide range of tasks,” Dr.. Shuhei Miyashita, a former postdoc at MIT CSAIL, who is now a lecturer at the University of York, told Digital Trends. “Specifically, the accessories are thin pieces of plastic that, when heated, fold themselves up into exoskeletons that allow the robot to walk, roll, and do other actions.”

The work builds on previous research projects from MIT, such as cube robots that can assemble themselves into different shapes, as well as small micro-bots which can be precisely programmed to fold into specific shapes from sheets of plastic.

 

 

 

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