Magic Bots: Vine-Inspired Robots Can Grow on Demand

Robots that mimic ivy vines can grow thousands of times their original lengths at

speeds faster than the average person can run, a new study finds. The new soft, flexible robots could one day be used in tight situations, such as to slither through rubble or snake inside the human body, the scientists said.Previously, scientists have designed robots that copy the way animals and other organisms move, ranging from jointed legs and flapping wings to slithering bodies and undulating tails. [The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created] Besides locomotion — the ability to move from one place to another — cells and organisms can navigate their environments through growth. For example, neurons branch outward to incorporate themselves into limbs, and roots grow downward into the soil to absorb water and nutrients. Study lead author Elliot Hawkes, a roboticist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was inspired to develop a robot that grows after "watching an English ivy plant, over the course of months, grow around the corner of my bookshelf seeking the sunlight and thinking that in a certain, very slow way, it was going somewhere," he said. Some advantages of growth over locomotion include the ability to maneuver through narrow spaces and to form potentially useful 3D structures. Until now, however, robots that grow could extend only about one to five times their body length and at speeds of up to about 23.6 inches (60 centimeters) per hour. Now, Hawkes and his colleagues have developed a robot that can grow thousands of times its body length at speeds of up to 22 mph (35.4 km/h). In comparison, the average man can run about 15 mph (24 km/h) for short periods, and the fastest man in the world, Usain Bolt, can run at up to about 28 mph (45 km/h), according to the National Council on Strength and Fitness.