MIT researchers have developed a device inspired by the golden tortoise beetle, an insect that changes color when poked with sensor-rich robotic skin that can react to its environment, is affordable and is easy to make.
To create their contraption, the team turned to 3D printing. They used a custom 3D printer called MultiFab to make the T-shaped gizmo, which has a small circular part that changes color when the T’s crossbars stretch. MultiFab did everything, from printing the device’s thin, sensor-laden plastic skin to depositing and curing the liquid that serves as its semiconductor.
Project chief Subramanian Sundaram said: “We were trying to see whether we could replicate sensorimotor pathways inside a 3-D-printed object. So we considered the simplest organism we could find.”
Printable electronic skins could lead not just to touchscreen everything. They could also give rise to devices with unusual structures, since they could be folded into complex 3D shapes. Some printable robots may even be able to assemble themselves.
[Source]
