http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/world/what-in-the-world/poland-plastic-robot-caterpillar.html 2016-09-22 11:38:38 In a Lab in Poland, Plastic That Can Crawl Hit it with a laser, and a polymer strip at the University of Warsaw will start wriggling like a caterpillar, part of a new class of “soft robots.” === It’s about half an inch long, a few millimeters wide and no thicker than a human hair, and it usually just sits there like a discarded strip of red cellophane — until a specific shade of green laser light strikes it. Then the University of Warsaw’s new robot caterpillar shows what it can do. It can move across a surface by itself, scrunching into a series of undulating shapes that run down its length in wavelike spasms. And it can even carry as much as 10 times its own weight while in motion. “The idea is just starting in science that robots can be something without wires and batteries and motors,” said Mikolaj Rogoz, a researcher in the Photonic Nanostructure Facility at the university’s Institute of Experimental Physics. “It can be just fragments of plastic and energy, and the energy source can be provided from outside the robot.” The institute The Warsaw caterpillar is made of a kind of plastic known as Why would anyone need a robot caterpillar? “It’s always a hard question how to use scientific inventions,” Mr. Rogoz said. “But maybe, after a dozen years’ research, we can insert this kind of robot into the human body to transport medicines to the right organs.” Of course, strong laser light couldn’t power the robot inside the body. Some other energy source would be needed, perhaps a magnetic field. “In the meantime, it is important that scientists change their thinking about robots,” Mr. Rogoz said.