A soft robot has no problem moving with no motor and no gears (engineering.princeton.edu)
39 points by hhs 5 days ago
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???
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.
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.
I think to OPs point, we keep hearing that same line and I've never once seen a productionalized version of these
Article with better quality video here https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-origami-robot-built-prin...
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.