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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."

9 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. 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?

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

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

  4. Cable driven trunks. by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That idea has been around for a while. Several snake and trunk like cable driven robots have been built. Some are a tube around discs, with three cables arranged to pull on each disc. Each disc is then a controllable joint. Combining this with pressure, vacuum, and a jamming medium is interesting, but it's not yet clear how useful.

    And no, it's not cheap. You still have a servomotor on every cable, plus valves and an air compressor. Coffee grounds are probably a temporary choice. Something like glass or plastic beads, which won't absorb water, may last longer.

    1. Re:Cable driven trunks. by EdZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is cheaper, because it only needs 3 servos for the entire arm, rather than 3 for each arm segment, and still maintain independent segment motion. You can lock (jam) all arm segments, release one for motion, move it (reshape that segment) while keeping the others rigid, then lock it again.

  5. Re:Now that's clever. by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lame First aside, actually it is.

    If you have ever seen a vacuum-packed brick of coffee you know what this is all about. It's ROCK-HARD until you break the seal, then it all falls to dust as the air gets in the package.

    --
    -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
  6. 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.

  7. 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?