A easy tube-shaped “4D-printed robotic” can roll uphill, carry a load and navigate an unpredictable panorama.
Wei Feng at Tianjin College in China and his colleagues designed the robotic, which is constructed from a flat rectangular sheet of 3D-printed liquid crystal elastomer. When the floor that this sheet is positioned on is heated above 160°C, the sheet self-assembles by rolling right into a tubular type, taking up the looks of a chunk of hole, spiral spaghetti.
This variation in form over time provides a fourth dimension to the development course of, making this what the researchers name a 4D-printed robotic.
The …
