Introducing Tech

Robots start flat, then pop into shape and crawl

Self-folding machines use heated hinges to transform

TRANSFORMER  A flat robot about the size of an iPad mini and made mostly of paper and plastic can fold itself into a crawling machine.

Seth Kroll/Wyss Institute

By Meghan Rosen

- More than 2 years ago

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A new crawling robot has taken a page from origami design.

The machine’s paper-and-plastic  body can spring from flat to 3-D just like a pop-up book, researchers report in the Aug.