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MIT Unveils Robotic Manipulator Filled With Coffee Grounds

Posted by timothy on from the your-creepy-robot-smells-delicious dept.

An anonymous reader writes "MIT researchers have developed a highly articulated robotic manipulator based on soft materials that can harden to reposition the device. The technique is known as jamming, and it relies on pouches filled with granular material like coffee grounds; when air is removed from the pouches, they become rigid. The researchers combined jamming actuators with cables to build a manipulator resembling an elephant trunk. They say the device is low-cost, capable of grasping a variety of objects, and can remain in a hardened state for extended periods of time using little energy."

8 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. women rejoice by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Funny

    they just built the most awesome dildo ever

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:women rejoice by BobNET · · Score: 5, Funny

      I can remain in a hardened state for extended periods of time using little energy!

      So can anyone, it's called rigor mortis.

    2. Re:women rejoice by HatofPig · · Score: 3, Funny

      When she told me she was a necrophiliac, I should have gotten the hint!

      --
      Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay
  2. Girls will love that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    They say the device is low-cost, capable of grasping a variety of objects, and can remain in a hardened state for extended periods of time using little energy

  3. Pfizer patent by BoogeyOfTheMan · · Score: 4, Funny

    "...can remain in a hardened state for extended periods of time using little energy."

    Didn't Pfizer patent this?

  4. Japanese men rejoice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Japanese men rejoice. Tentacle porn is no longer limited to a drawn form.

  5. We've secretly replaced by Intropy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here at MIT in one of the world's finest robotics labs we've secretly replaced the coffee grounds in these articulated manipulators with rich, sparkling Folgers crystals to see if scientists can tell the difference.

  6. What could possibly go wrong? by xt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Following the second link of TFA, I saw the picture of the robot and it was somehow familiar... What could possibly go wrong?