Having been modeled after a variety of organisms (or their
parts), robots come in all shapes and sizes but researchers at
MIT now report that they’ve designed their robots after the very
structures that make up living cells: proteins. Dubbed the
Millimeter-Scale Motorized Protein or Milli-Motein, the tiny
robots are able to change from extended chains to various 3D
folded shapes in seconds. But the really impressive feature is
that the robots keep their shape even after power has been
removed, thanks to a new kind of motor the team developed. Each
chain consists of 1-cm units that connect together, just as
amino acids link up to make a protein, with a continuous flex
circuit that controls power and communication to the device.
Currently, the motor in each segment is able to lift only one
other segment, but the researchers are already working on
extending this to two segments. The video put out by MIT shows
how the snake-like robot can adopt and hold different
configurations: Developed by the team, the Electro