Printed robot moves with a beat

Tiny device created with a 3-D printer employs heart cells to make it move

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Fueled by the rhythmic beating of rat heart cells, a soft-bodied robot the size of a grain of rice chugs across a Petri dish. Designed with drafting software on a computer, the bot’s blueprints were brought to life with a 3-D printer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.