[HN Gopher] A soft robot has no problem moving with no motor and...
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A soft robot has no problem moving with no motor and no gears
Author : hhs
Score : 81 points
Date : 2026-04-09 22:33 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (engineering.princeton.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (engineering.princeton.edu)
| msuniverse2026 wrote:
| Why do these kept getting made? I feel like I see some new soft
| robot every few months or so. Are they used to infiltrate past
| grates in a sewer security system and slide under lasers or
| something what is up with these???
| degamad wrote:
| Literally the first line of the article:
|
| > With their ability to shapeshift and manipulate delicate
| objects, soft robots could work as medical implants, deliver
| drugs inside the body and help explore dangerous environments.
| homeonthemtn wrote:
| I think to OPs point, we keep hearing that same line and I've
| never once seen a productionalized version of these
| DennisP wrote:
| I'm not sure that's a big strike against it yet. Kinda the
| whole point of engineering in academia is to work on hard
| things that are far from commercialization.
| andrewl wrote:
| The fact that a product has not _yet_ been created from a
| given technology does not mean the technology or the
| research itself is useless, or will not turn out to be
| useful in the long term. You can also learn a lot from
| research or development that does not ultimately work
| out.
| toss1 wrote:
| >>"never once seen a productionalized version of these"
|
| YET
|
| Just because we have not _YET_ seen one does not mean it
| should not be pursued.
|
| Examples are endless, start with: 30 years ago, no one had
| seen a solar panel with 25% efficiency produced for less
| than $1/watt. Now, it is the most economical and fastest-
| growing and most sustainable energy source on the planet.
|
| That argument is simply an argument against all efforts at
| making progress. Perhaps rethink making it?
| Xmd5a wrote:
| https://www.bu.edu/biorobotics/icra10workshop/icra10workshop...
|
| > A broad variety of serpentine and continuum robots have been
| developed for minimally invasive surgical applications.
|
| Soft robotic grippers are also interesting because they allow
| you to grasp objects without complex touch/force sensors.
|
| https://joaobuzzatto.com/kirigami-grippers/
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Because it's a really cool concept that a lot of engineers and
| researchers are excited about, despite the lack of practical
| applications.
|
| Yes, sometimes that's all it takes.
| hobo_in_library wrote:
| and the the Dept of War can imagine creative enough uses for
| these things to keep funding them (it's how we got computers
| and the internet too)
| glitchc wrote:
| We are soft robots (mostly flesh). The skeleton is a scaffold
| on which our muscles hang. It makes sense to try to replicate
| what works in biology.
| nomel wrote:
| Squishy actuators, to manipulate a rigid links of a skeleton,
| does not make a soft robot.
|
| We have subsystems that might qualify though (neck, spine,
| tongue, nether bits).
| Zigurd wrote:
| You can't mix really strong robots with humans without barriers
| separating them. That's one reason humanoid robots won't sell.
| They're dangerous. Real robots in real factories that make real
| stuff can juggle car engines. And they can tear you limb from
| limb. So they work behind barriers and intrusion detection
| systems.
|
| Hence soft robots. They're safe. Also useless.
| numtel wrote:
| > Also useless
|
| Grow some imagination
| gavinray wrote:
| > That's one reason humanoid robots won't sell.
|
| Speak for yourself, there'll be one in my household as soon
| as they're commercially affordable.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Disaster response is a lie researchers tell themselves when
| building military hardware. The purpose of such robots would be
| to _e.g._ burrow into the collapsed tunnels at Fordow and
| confirm the uranium is there. (Or, alternatively, burrow into
| military tunnels to identify targets.)
| jerezzprime wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/2128/
| ge96 wrote:
| Zeta Jones bot
| debo_ wrote:
| The first question a robotics investor will ask themselves is
| "will people want to have sex with it?"
| world2vec wrote:
| There's this YouTube channel called "soiboi soft"[0] that is
| doing many experiments with air-powered soft robotics and
| microfluidics.
|
| It's a pretty cool concept and might have interesting albeit
| niche applications.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/@soiboisoft
| smusamashah wrote:
| Article with better quality video here
| https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-origami-robot-built-prin...
| simojo wrote:
| Liquid crystal elastomers will most likely never be used in
| humans because, in order to drive the phase transition (mematic
| mesogens going from isotopic to anisotropic phase) necessary for
| macro scale work, the LCE has to be heated well beyond 100C. Even
| in non-thermal contexts, you need kilovolts to influence a doped
| bulk LCE. I just don't see it happening.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| These phase transition motive architectures _all_ suffer from the
| same issues of not enough precision with repeatable positioning,
| very low speed, and limited control over the shaping of force
| /torque curve.
|
| The _only_ practical example are wax motors:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_motor
|
| This entire article is simply bad university lab PR.
| jzemeocala wrote:
| one step closer to Rudy Rucker's "piezoplastic" from his Ware
| series
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(page generated 2026-04-14 23:01 UTC)