Some of the most perplexing and awe-inspiring phenomena in nature involve self-assembly, where thousands—sometimes millions—of individual disorganized actors manage to form large, complex structures ...

A palm-sized robot inspired by frogs uses snapping rods to jump, swim and navigate an obstacle course.

But shape-shifting robots, which are controlled by magnetic fields, can dynamically squish, bend, or elongate their entire bodies. "Such a robot could have thousands of small pieces of muscle to ...

(Nanowerk Spotlight) Building robots that can effortlessly mimic the movements of insects on water has been a persistent challenge in robotics. The ability to move autonomously and efficiently in ...

This shape-changing robot just got a lot smaller. In a new study, engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder debuted mCLARI, a 2-centimeter-long modular robot that can passively change its shape ...

(Nanowerk News) Biologically inspired robotics aims to replicate the extraordinary versatility found in nature. Chameleons alter skin pigmentation to camouflage against predators. Birds morph wings ...

Imagine a robot that can’t decide whether it wants to be a dog or a person, so it just becomes both. That’s essentially what Hong Kong’s Direct Drive Technology has created with the D1, a ...

Daniela Rus, a professor of computer science and engineering at MIT and a principal investigator at its Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), is working on yet another innovative ...

Toss aside your typical idea of a robot — all metal, jerky movements and a stiff-legged walk. Scientists at Tufts University are developing soft, squishy robots that are able to squeeze into spaces a ...

In a vaguely female synthesized voice–but always in plain English–Scoty, the latest robot from the robotic-toy maker WowWee, demonstrated its functions for a visitor recently. Chief among them are ...

Imagine a slime-like robot that can seamlessly change its shape to squeeze through narrow spaces, which could be deployed inside the human body to remove an unwanted item. While such a robot does not ...