Robotics
Who needs legs? With their sleek bodies, snakes can slither up to 14 miles-per-hour, squeeze into tight space, scale trees and swim. How do they do it? It's all in the scales. As a snake moves, its scales grip the ground ...
Feb 21, 2018
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51
Engineering
Nature has produced exquisite composite materials—wood, bone, teeth, and shells, for example—that combine light weight and density with desirable mechanical properties such as stiffness, strength and damage tolerance.
Jan 15, 2018
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239
Robotics
We've seen RoboBees that can fly, stick to walls, and dive into water. Now, get ready for a hybrid RoboBee that can fly, dive into water, swim, propel itself back out of water, and safely land.
Oct 25, 2017
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379
Computer Sciences
When we think about digital information, we often think about size. A daily email newsletter, for example, may be 75 to 100 kilobytes in size. But data also has dimensions, based on the numbers of variables in a piece of ...
Oct 19, 2017
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1120
Robotics
Flexible endoscopes can snake through narrow passages to treat difficult to reach areas of the body. However, once they arrive at their target, these devices rely on rigid surgical tools to manipulate or remove tissue. These ...
Aug 2, 2017
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22
Energy & Green Tech
Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a new flow battery that stores energy in organic molecules dissolved in neutral pH water. This new chemistry allows ...
Feb 9, 2017
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3264
Engineering
Nature does amazing things with limited design materials. Grass, for example, can support its own weight, resist strong wind loads, and recover after being compressed. The plant's hardiness comes from a combination of its ...
Feb 6, 2017
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694
Engineering
Metamaterials—materials whose function is determined by structure, not composition—have been designed to bend light and sound, transform from soft to stiff, and even dampen seismic waves from earthquakes. But each of ...
Jan 18, 2017
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249
Robotics
Designing a soft robot to move organically—to bend like a finger or twist like a wrist—has always been a process of trial and error. Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied ...
Dec 19, 2016
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27
Robotics
A team of Harvard University researchers with expertise in 3D printing, mechanical engineering, and microfluidics has demonstrated the first autonomous, untethered, entirely soft robot. This small, 3D-printed robot—nicknamed ...
Aug 24, 2016
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