This rope-laying, ever-growing robot may one day explore your blood vessels
"We took the idea that plants and fungi add material at the end of their bodies, either at their root tips or at their new shoots, and we translated that to an engineering system."The resin is pumped out at one end to produce a growing hollow tube, like squeezing toothpaste, and the process is controlled using photopolymerisation, a technique often used in 3D printers.
These robots essentially each emit a long cord of material that molds to their environment, all while pushing the devices along, much like how fungi can push through soil and grow along the roots of a tree. THe robot cannot retract its tail and move backwards, we note. The team believes its method, once suitably miniaturized, may prove useful one day in developing soft robots to complete medical tasks within the body.
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