By using a magnet, researchers melted this mini robot into a puddle before it slithered out of the caged structure. (Image Credit: Image Credit: Wang and Pan et al/Matter CC-By-SA)
At first, I thought this was one of those homemade kid’s LEGO figure animations. But, it seems we’re getting closer to recreating the terminator. No, seriously. Engineers developed small magnetic Terminator-like robots that transition from a liquid to a solid and conduct electricity. Inspired by sea cucumbers, the team produced this phase-shifting material called "magnetoactive solid-liquid phase transitional machine" by embedding tiny clumps of boron, magnetic neodymium, and iron in liquid gallium.
This allows the robot to shape-shift like the T-1000 in the Terminator 2 film and escape confined spaces. The team uses magnets to melt the bot into a puddle before watching it slide through a cage's bars and reconstruct itself back into its original form. The engineers melted the bot by heating it via magnetic induction, where a moving magnet generates an electric current within the bot. Once applied, the current melted the gallium, which pulled the magnetic elements in the magnet's direction.
Additionally, the team tested the material to determine its strength and mobility. With the help of a magnetic field, the robot climbed walls, jumped over moats, and split in two to move objects around before joining its two halves together.
"The magnetic particles here have two roles," says senior author and mechanical engineer Carmel Majidi. "One is that they make the material responsive to an alternating magnetic field, so you can, through induction, heat up the material and cause the phase change. But the magnetic particles also give the robots mobility and the ability to move in response to the magnetic field."
According to the team, this robot could serve many applications in the medical and technological industry. It has already demonstrated different capabilities, such as wireless circuit assembly and repairs, achieved by slithering into hard-to-reach areas. It can act as solder, melt into a screw socket, and turn into a mechanical screw. The robot also removed a foreign object from a model stomach.
"Future work should further explore how these robots could be used within a biomedical context," says Majidi. "What we're showing are just one-off demonstrations, proofs of concept, but much more study will be required to delve into how this could actually be used for drug delivery or for removing foreign objects."
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