When a knot lets go, it doesn’t just fall apart. It snaps. The Yang lab shows that a millimeter-sized, knotted soft robot can leap meters into the air, flipping mid-flight, spinning like a propeller. Adding a wing extends that control into the air. The robot can curves back toward its starting point, like a boomerang or descend nearly vertically into soil for seeding. Read more
Tiny, Knotted Robots Jump, Fly and Plant Seeds
