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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 7 4 7 STRESS RELIEF ROBOGAMI ENABLES 3D-PRINTED, FOLDABLE ROBOTS Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laborato- ry (CSAIL) are getting closer to making robot design easier than ever with a new system called Interactive Robogami. The system enables complete robot design in minutes, followed by 3D printing and assembly in as little as four hours. A key fea- ture of the system is that it allows designers to determine both the robot’s move- ment and shape, a capability often separated in today’s design systems. Interactive Robogami aims to bemuchmore intuitive than typical design software. It uses sim- ulations and interactive feedback with algorithms for design composition, allow- ing users to focus on high-level conceptual design. A library of over 50 different bodies, wheels, legs, and peripherals, plus a selection of different gaits, is available to users. Next, the team’s origami-inspired “3D print and fold” technique involves printing the design as flat faces connected at joints and then folding the design into its final shape. While the current version focuses on walking designs, the team hopes that future work will allow the robots to take flight. mit.edu . NO-DRIP ICE CREAM HANDLES THE HEAT A fortuitous discovery at Japan’s Kanazawa-based Biotherapy Development Re- search Center has enabled the creation of drip-free ice cream treats. Kanazawa Ice, also called “not melting popsicles,” debuted in Kanazawa in April, according to Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, before being sold in Osaka and Tokyo. The secret ingredient? Polyphenol liquid from strawberries. “Polyphenol liquid has properties to make it diffi- cult for water and oil to separate so that a popsicle containing it will be able to retain the original shape of the cream for a longer time than usual and be hard to melt,” explains Tomihisa Ota, the popsicle’s creator. The discovery was made by surprise when a pastry chef was asked to try to use strawberry polyphenol to create a new kind of confectionary, in an attempt to use strawberries that were not in good enough shape to be sold. The pas- try chef complained that cream would solidify when it came in contact with polyphenol, sparking the discovery. qz.com . MINIATURE MONSTER TRUCK ENTERS WORLD’S SHORTEST RACE In April, the world’s shortest race was run on gold and silver tracks with microscopic vehicles. The six-vehicle nanorace led to a surprising discovery by a team fromOhio University (OU) that entered a miniature monster truck. The 3.5-nm Bobcat Nanowagon featured a pseudorotaxane H-shaped frame with four large cucurbituril molecules as wheels. The 30-hour competition was held at the French National Center for Sci- entific Research (CNRS) in Toulouse on April 28, although the OU team drove its truck remotely. The Bobcat traveled 43 nm on the gold track before it got stuck due to a rough section of track and a power blip in the Midwest. Researchers assembled the nanowagon by suspending the chassis molecules in water, adding wheel molecules, and then evaporating the water. They were sur- prised to find that very few wheels weren’t connected to anything. “That means that it was easier to break the chassis, a covalent bond, than to break the nonco- valent bonds between the chassis and the wheels,” says Eric Masson of OU. “That’s completely counterintuitive because typically a noncovalent bond is much weaker than a covalent bond. It’s a theoretical curiosity.” How this information might apply to future molecular machines remains unknown, although many scientists envi- sion tiny vehicles like these in electronics and data storage applications. acs.org . Ohio University’s nanosizedmonster truck. Courtesy of Eric Masson. Interactive Robogami enables fabrication of a wide range of robot designs. Courtesy of MIT/CSAIL. Japanese ice cream that doesn’t melt.