3D Printed Origami Robot

A team of students and professors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been working on innovative research that illustrates how they used bio-inspired design and origami structures to make small, crawling robots. The research team is with the university's Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering (MechSE). We've seen origami, 3D printing, and robotics combined before, but the MechSE team's robots are much smaller, and inspired by a common theme in creatures with flexible bodies, like Venus Flytraps, earthworms, and uni-flagellated bacteria that swim through liquid, that rapidly snap their bodies to move, which saves energy while also allowing them to move quickly. Read more at 3DPrint.com: http://3dprint.com/186852/flexible-i...obot-research/

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