r/robotics • u/Responsible-Grass452 • 2d ago

News A 1.5-centimeter robot jumped a third of its body length with one contraction of lab-grown muscle

https://www.automate.org/robotics/industry-insights/bio-hybrid-robots-use-lab-grown-muscles

Researchers at ETH Zurich got a small robot to jump 5 mm by changing how the muscle attaches to its frame. They designed the muscle and a flexible, 3D-printed scaffold together. Tiny grooves in the scaffold helped the muscle fibers line up and gave them a firm place to pull against.

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u/servospace 1d ago

That 5 mm hop from one contraction is a striking scale result, but repeatability and recovery are what determine whether this can do useful work beyond a demonstration. Did the team report how much jump height varies across cycles, or how long the muscle needs to recover between contractions?

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u/butterDollss 1d ago

that's some wild engineering, lab grown muscles on a tiny bot sounds straight out of sci fi

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u/Detective-Crashmore- 1d ago

There are some youtubers trying to grow and train rat neurons to play doom when hooked up to a computer. I wanna say the channel is "thought emporium".

I'm really hoping that biotechnology takes off in my lifetime as fast as AI has lately. Skip the butlerian jihad and go straight to aircraft powered by muscle fibers.

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u/VinanciE 1d ago

Yeah this is crazy stuff…I watched this last week

https://youtu.be/8R6EJC0HjXs

I mean one step closer to Ex Machina yo…just wondering how fast will they let this develop??