An Origami Robot

MIT researchers have developed a centimeter-long printable origami robot that folds itself up from a flat sheet of plastic when heated. All of their prototypes are made from liquid-soluble materials because they envision a day when the sheets might be injected into human bodies, where they would travel to an intervention site, fold up, complete an assigned task, and then dissolve. The biomaterials advance in the device is not so much a matter of the materials that are used but the ability to get the plastics (polyvinyl chloride and polystyrene in the prototypes) to fold at a given temperature. Later versions of the technology featured electrically conductive outer layers. The researchers envision that an electrical version of the device could be used as a biosensor.

Image courtesy of MIT