
Origami Robot Folds Itself Up, Does Cool Stuff, Dissolves into Nothing - spectro
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/origami-robot-folds-itself-up-does-cool-stuff-dissolves-into-nothing
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theophrastus
While confessing to being a language lawyer: if an object gains all its
immediate direction and energy from external sources how is it not a "puppet"?
That is, isn't the expectation at least a tenuous amount of autonomy before
it's termed a "robot"?

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JoeAltmaier
That sounds right. A robot has to sense something in its environment, then
control something based on that measurement. Its not a high bar: even your
thermostat is a robot.

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chillingeffect
I think it's high time a formal taxonomy of robots gets introduced.

There are humanoid robots, robots that simply do labor, autonomous, semi-
autonomous, remote-controlled, etc. Your definition of sensing and control is
new to me, personally, but valid of course. There are software robots, and
then there are clickbaiters and charlatans making outrageous claims which lose
their drama when an appropriate definition of robot is applied... We just need
to straighten it all out, organize all of the things!

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anotheryou
Apart from looking cool, what does locomotion and folding do?

To me it looks not much different from one magnet on the surface and moving
one underneath :)

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rtpg
it's mentioned in the article, but here all you have to do is orient a
magnetic field, not move a magnet. Because of the shape of the robot, it will
move in a direction related to the orientation of the field.

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zxyzzxxx
Given that it is externally powered, where would such a thing be useful today?

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chton
Today, not very many places. I can imagine a scenario where you want a large
group of these to crawl through rubble to find people stuck under it. Most
research like this comes with the hope of miniaturizing it enough for medical
applications. Imagine this thing, but the size a grain of sand: entering your
bloodstream, adapting to whatever task that needs to be done, and when it's
finished moving to the stomach to get dissolved. In those applications, using
external power makes complete sense, since it's a medical setting anyway, and
it provides a great way to keep very fine control.

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mjgoins
Is it just me or does it seem like the video was altered to make the motion
smoother? Maybe it's just a very jittery robot.

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sp332
The article says the magnets pulse at 15 Hz. And most of the video is sped up,
so it would look _extremely_ jittery.

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cdnsteve
Anyone ever assembled Ikea furniture? Imagine furniture that assembles itself
when you get home.

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lawlessone
Then it vibrates you to death.

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crimsonalucard
Is it just me or did that video look like stop motion? Probably just an
illusion.

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njharman
I actually thought it was a fake because of that. Then I read and discovered
it's not actually a robot. Just some foil/magnet being driven by several
relatively enormous electro-magnets.

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jakejake
Promoting the feature that it dissolves in acetone (and one day water) seems
like this is being designed with nefarious purposes in mind. A robot that
erases all traces of itself after completing its mission.

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colinramsay
That depends on your perspective, particular since it says in the article
"eventually, it'll be doing it inside your body". I believe it's intended for
medical use.

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Otik
Yep, once it's done it can just navigate to the nearest acetone reservoir in
the body.

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vladiliescu
"Making the entire robot dissolve in water is a bit trickier, but the
researchers seem confident that it’ll be possible in the near future."

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jokr004
But if it dissolves in water how is it supposed to make it anywhere inside
your body? There's lots of water in there.

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lawlessone
Contact lenses are ruined by contact with ordinary water but the saline
solution and water in our eyes doesn't ruin them.

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sp332
Same problem, there isn't really any pure water in your body to dissolve
robots in either.

