This Is The First LIQUID Robot, And It’s Unbelievable

This is a slime robot, fully capable of moving in any direction through tiny spaces around objects and even grabbing onto things tightly. And it's completely created and controlled by humans. No, it's not Flubber from the movie with Robin Williams, a greatly unappreciated scientific masterpiece. This slime is truly a groundbreaking discovery and creation that could change the future of robotics, medicine, and humanity. Yes, the future of humanity may be impacted by a magnetic turd. Okay, in all seriousness, what exactly is it and why is it significant? Well, we use robots for all sorts of purposes, but they aren't exactly known for their dexterity and nuanced touch, which is why this robot simply learning how to peel a banana without smashing it to bits was a huge breakthrough just this year. Miniature robots have also been created to navigate tight spaces, like these tiny objects coated with a magnetic spray, making the delivery of pills to a very specific part of the body a possibility. And the rise of nanobots has even opened the potential for microscopic machines that could be deployed inside the human body and act to identify or even destroy cancer in the future. But robots combining the ability for tight or tiny navigation and physical manipulation together are super rare. On the one hand, you have elastomer-based soft body robots that are great for gentle manipulation in sensitive environments, but are limited in their deformability or how small they can get. And on the other hand, you have fluid-based soft body robots, which are really good at fitting into small spaces, but are limited by their unstable shape. This is where our slime robot comes in. The slime is made up of a polymer called polyvinyl alcohol and borax, which can actually be created fairly simply. What you end up with is a slimy, blobby-like substance that can act like both a liquid and a solid. This behavior is called viscoelasticity, and it's kind of like when you mix together water and cornstarch and make oobleck, the non-Newtonian substance whose viscosity changes under pressure. If you smack it or touch it really quickly, it acts like a solid, but if handled slowly and gently, it acts like a liquid. The same is true of this slime. But what gives it its unique ability to move are tiny particles of neodymium magnets. Neodymium can create powerful permanent magnets that are super useful when you need a low magnet mass or volume. And in this case, because the slime is so small, the researchers wanted to use tiny magnets with high power. And these magnetic particles within the slime can be manipulated in order to make it travel, rotate, or form different shapes. I'm quite interested in using the magnetic field to drive, you know, this kind of tiny device inside the body. The main advantage is that a magnetic field is not that harmful to the tissue, to the body. Okay, so we've got a magnetic slime robot on our hands, but what exactly is it for? Like, what can it actually do? Right now, the biggest focus by its creators seems to be in the medical field, though it's certainly not limited to just that. Because of the slime's ability to navigate tiny spaces and be manipulated, it could be useful in the digestive system. For example, if you or a child swallowed something toxic, like a small battery, the slime could be deployed to wrap around a toxic object and help prevent toxic electrolytes from leaking out. Much like other miniature soft body robots, it could be used to assist minimally invasive surgery or even targeted drug delivery. The slime is able to navigate channels as small as 1.5 millimeters, which is tiny. Like this tiny. So small. They were proven to work on multiple surfaces and substrates in complex environments from plastic to glass, silicone, water, metal, and paper. Ultimately, the slime is extremely versatile, which is rare for conventional liquid-based robots. It can stretch up to seven times its original length. And unlike other soft body robots, this slime doesn't require a pre-designed shape and can be reconfigured in situ. The magnetic slime can grasp multiple target objects simultaneously and even extend tentacles in three directions. I consider it more like a surgical tool because it's larger and you can apply a much stronger force on the object because you can put more magnetic material inside of the slime robot in comparison with those nanobots. But truth be told, the functional use is still really hypothetical and in its fundamental research stage where scientists are just trying to understand its material properties. It could be used as an electrical conductor to connect electrodes in hard to reach places or in motion sensing of the human body for wearable devices. Electronic devices often fail because of partial disconnection, whether from environmental factors or scratches by sharp objects, and this slime could help repair those. The slime is even self-healing, bringing itself back together after being chopped apart. This is because of the hydrogen bonds between the borite ions and OH groups, which can occur spontaneously without the help of external sources. And after healing, it maintains its physical integrity and electrical capabilities. The researchers even did a series of tests with LED light bulbs showing the slime self-healing between a circuit and the lights coming back to full strength. The true possibilities are just beginning to be explored as it's essentially a new type of material and that will likely be the focus of future experiments with the slime. Of course, it's important to remember that the slime does not have any form of sentience or autonomy as it's completely controlled by human manipulation, at least for now. And in its current state, the magnetic particles themselves are actually toxic, but protective layers of silica have been tested for hypothetical use in humans to keep it safe. In the future, we hope that we can realize some kind of autonomous control and also the device can have some intelligence. Basically, a slime robot should know how to deform, how to behave, how to manipulate or interact with the environment. So really, I mean, we have two parts. One is from an engineering point of view, the other is its application for medicine. At the end of the day, it's another really creative and cool step in robot creation and manipulation that will likely bear even more fruit for future research and more creations. 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