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Flexible Robot Can Change Colors
SternisheFan tips news of a robot designed by Harvard University researchers that can change colors to blend into its surroundings (abstract). The robot also has a soft, flexible body, and is driven by air pumped into cavities in its legs.
"The team thinks the devices could have a variety of different uses. Lead author Stephen Morin said the soft machines had similarities with organs or tissues and could have medical applications. He explained: 'The idea is that if you have a system that can simulate muscle motion very well and a system that can transport fluid, by combining those you can fabricate that device to fit a specific surgical problem.' The team also said the machines could have a future in search and rescue. Prof Whitesides said: 'For that kind of application, having it be able to advertise itself, for example, in a way that stood out against the dark would be a good thing.'"
Potentially terminator now has cloaking. We are so doomed! Or at least those who live in the future are doomed. Since that doesn't presently include me, I think I shall enjoy a friday night beer and no doom:O)
Come on, we all know this is just active camouflage for the military.
I was sitting in a pub and it made itself look like a pretzel.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Does it turn blue and look like a police call box?
Fight Spammers!
Am I the only one thinking that the description would fit another type of bot quite well? Maybe Bot Naked woudl be a good alternative name...
"The idea is that if you have a system that can simulate muscle motion very well and a system that can transport fluid, by combining those you can fabricate that device to fit a specific surgical problem"
Is he sure that he's talking about a surgical problem?
"The team thinks the devices could have a variety of different uses" - with a few adjustments and a teleprompter app, they could take over the government!
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
The most worrying part 'bout this is that I've read that story in a German newspaper this very morning. I've always believed that a printed rural newspaper could be faster than Slashdot ...
I,for one, welcome our new robo-chameleon overlords.
Did anyone else feel like they basically were like, ok hold up! And then someone came out and painted the robot?
I wonder if the machine that's pumping the air and dye is as easily camouflaged.
This really is be the most pathetic robot I've ever seen. Seeing it hobble along like the adams family hand - I waited expectantly. Then, it fell pathetically before having ink flow through a tube like life support. Laughable! They might as well have walked up to it and painted it. Makes ASIMO's stair fails look slick. Can anyone share with me some more pathetic robots to brighten my Friday afternoon?
robot /rbät/ Noun 1. A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. 2. (esp. in science fiction) A machine resembling a human being and able to replicate certain human movements and functions. Synonyms automaton
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_robots
http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=h_QDuYuqu9I
http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/definition/robot
First, the bot is clear, with tubes in it. You 'change colors' by running a colored fluid thought the tubes. So now you have to tether the bot to whatever is mixing and pumping the pigment for the fluid. And wires in the case of camouflage to send back what color you're trying to match. If you just gave it LEDs and an radio, you'd have something wireless, tubeless and not needing to carry fluid (which is heavy)
These are the ideas I have every day that I don't even bother to pursue because they are just so stupid.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
flexible?
changes colors?
If it moves like an octopus and and looks like an octopus, it much be hentai time!!!
I can change colour too, if I carry a bucket of paint with me and stop to dip my head in it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I'd pick that movie. It had cheap throwaway spiderlike robots that were launched in large amounts in an apartment buildig. They could squeeze through tiny openings and reach any place and this allowed them to search a whole building.
The robots in this article are just proof of concept of course. So easy to dismiss, as you can see by all the "nothing new, it's been done" posts on here - or anywhere for that matter.
I've kept a pet cuttlefish for the last year or so in my aquarium - they have the ability to change their color and texture on demand. Video evidence here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqaKxm6rMUs#t=158s
Clear tube can take on any color when it is filled with liquid of that color.
Calling it a robot that changes colors seems a bit outlandish.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I submitted this story, found it on googlenews this morning, and hands down, Georgeaperkins had the funniest post here! Since the video's in flash I didn't get to see it right away (android phone), when I finally saw it, yep, major letdown. It's basically an inflatable shrinky-dink, but give it 20 years and millions in development money.... jeez, it'll still suck mightily! Reminds me of a squeezeball toy frog I had as a kid.
2 ,12:38 p.m. Researchers at Harvard University have created a robot that can change color in seconds, allowing it to blend seamlessly into a background like a chameleon, or stand out so that it is easy to see. It can even glow in the dark, and change its temperature. These are just the latest additions to a family of rubbery, bendable robots first described in a 2011 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by the Whiteside Group, a Harvard-based research group. The group was interested in creating a robot that was soft, rather than hard and breakable like most of the robots we know. And so they looked to the sea. This robot's design was inspired by invertebrates like squid and starfish and other animals with no hard skeletons. The squishy robot moves by having air pumped through small cylinders in its body, and is flexible enough to squeeze through a glass plate elevated just 2 centimeters above the ground in under a minute, according to a report in the BBC. To make this robot even more like the underwater creatures that inspired its design, Stephen Morin lead a team that added thin, flexible network of tubes just under the robot's "skin." Scientists pump different color dyes into the network of tubes, thereby changing the color of the robot. They can even create intricate patterns, and if they use a chemo-luminescent dye, make the the robot glow in the dark. The temperature of the fluids can also be controlled, so that the robot can be camouflaged in the infared spectrum too. The Journal Science has a wonderful video that shows the color changing robot in action, (plus awesome footage of a camouflaging octopus). That's all very neat, but is it practical? Well, it could be. For example, if you were trapped in a collapsed building, one of these squishy robots could be sent squeezing itself in. http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-camouflage-robot-20120817,0,308264.story
"can change colors to blend into its surroundings"
Remote controls have been doing that since invention.
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