“Robotics Skins” turn everyday objects into robots

     

The skins are made from elastic sheets embedded with sensors and actuators developed in Kramer-Bottiglio's lab. Placed on a deformable object -- a stuffed animal or a foam tube, for instance -- the skins animate these objects from their surfaces. The makeshift robots can perform different tasks depending on the properties of the soft objects and how the skins are applied.

"We can take the skins and wrap them around one object to perform a task -- locomotion, for example -- and then take them off and put them on a different object to perform a different task, such as grasping and moving an object," she said. "We can then take those same skins off that object and put them on a shirt to make an active wearable device."