The Doll Forum

Columbia researchers develop 3D printed soft robotic muscles that are 3x stronger than yours.

Researchers at Columbia Engineering, the engineering department of New York’s Columbia University, have developed a 3D printed synthetic soft muscle with an “intrinsic expansion ability.” The incredible actuator, which paves the way for fully soft robots, can lift 1,000 times its own weight.

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20170919- ... yours.html
https://www.aslanmiriyev.com/soft-mater ... t-robotics

This operates off of low voltage currents - 8V, instead of high voltage >1000 volt of electro active polymers.
It has extremely low cost - 3 cents per gram of actuator weight, claimed easy to fabricate. Likely could be made and size.

The future is coming!

https://www.dollforum.com/forum/viewtop ... 14&t=90406

Yes, we know.

If you read the Nature article, you'd see that it's it's based on a 20% ethanol/Platinum Silicone mixture, and it's actuated by a heating element.

Technically, you should be able to make a 'muscle' by yourself.

DenaMeier wrote:The incredible actuator, which paves the way for fully soft robots, can lift 1,000 times its own weight.

That would be nice... then when my back goes out again, my doll can carry me to the bed and give me a sponge bath.

next stop, silky soft sexbots that can move your fridge for you

The concern with this technology is it's very slow to actuate but the researchers hoped to increase response time to human-muscle analogue.

The "muscle" relies on the expansion of ethanol, trapped in the silicone matrix, when heated with an electric filament.

Now that they have a working concept, perhaps they could use substances other than ethanol, and a different way of getting the substance to expand besides using a heating element.

That might be a key to speeding things up.