Soft robotics takes a step forward with a new manufacturing method developed at Harvard. Inspired by the potter's wheel, this rotary 3D printing system allows creating complete flexible robots, with integrated sensors and actuators, in a single continuous process. The technique eliminates complex assemblies and opens doors to more functional and efficient designs for medical or exploration applications.
A potter's wheel for printing multi-material robots ??
The system rotates a central core while a print head extrudes and deposits materials with different properties precisely and coordinately. This allows combining, in the same piece, elastic rubbers and rigid plastics. The key lies in the simultaneous control of rotation and deposition, which enables intrinsically integrating functional components during manufacturing, without subsequent assembly operations.
Does the future of robotics lie in the potter's workshop? ?º
It seems that the next industrial revolution will not come from an ultramodern assembly line, but from something the ancient Sumerians already knew: spinning something while shaping it. Now, instead of vases, we create robotic tentacles. One almost expects the print head, in a moment of carelessness, to mold a handle and turn the robot into a practical lab coffee mug. Tradition and vanguard, united by a common spin.