Crawling and transforming soft robot, Stanford SHAPE Lab, Stanford University Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford, California, USA

A new type of robot combines traditional and soft robotics, making it safe but sturdy. Once inflated, it can change shape and move without being attached to a source of energy or air.

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How soft robots could shape our future. This is a Squishy Robot. Researchers at Stanford University and UC Santa Barbara, with funding from the National Science Foundation, have developed this soft robot that combines traditional and soft robotics, making it safe but sturdy. Once inflated, it can move without being tethered to a source of energy or air. This squishy robot can change shape, allowing it to grab and handle objects and roll in controllable directions. The team believes their robot's safe-but-sturdy softness may make them useful in homes and workplaces, where traditional robots could cause injury. These robots are also appealing as tools for disaster response and even space exploration.

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A large-scale, isoperimetric, untethered, soft robot changes shape by manipulating constant-length inflated tubes using movable joints.

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