14 DAY TRIAL // Some French researchers at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) managed to build a small 4-gram origami robot that can crawl, jump seven times its height and then resume crawling without rest.
Called "Tribot," the little robot has been inspired by the inchworm, and to have it resemble it closely, the team at the Reconfigurable Robotics Laboratory didn't want to use bulky motors that are typically used in robots but needed something sleek and very small so it can fit inside the light, foldable machine. This way they used titanium and nickel "shape memory alloy" so they could build actuators and springs for it.
The way it moves is by having electrical current heat the memory alloy parts and making the limbs "remember" their previous position by popping back to their original position after expanding. The two-limbed "Tribot" was so successful that researchers want to continue developing the origami Tribot into a four-limbed "Crawler."
The funny part is that there isn't any immediate application for this small jumping robot. However, the mobility principle behind it - moving without any sort of motors - and it also being extremely light might make the device proper for usage in military or surveillance-oriented applications.
It wouldn't be fair to presume that this was its purpose all along, it's enough to say that it would be quite popular in some circles. Plus, it looks funny.
