MIT engineers have created soft, 3-D-printed structures whose movements can be controlled with a wave of a magnet, much like marionettes without the strings. Credit: Felice Frankel
New printing technique could be used to develop remotely controlled biomedical devices. MIT engineers have created soft, 3D-printed structures whose movements can be controlled with a wave of a magnet. The menagerie of structures that can be magnetically manipulated includes a smooth ring that wrinkles up, a long tube that squeezes shut, a sheet that folds itself, and a spider-like “grabber” that can crawl, roll, jump, and snap together fast enough to catch a passing ball. It can even be directed to wrap itself around a small pill and carry it across a table.
The researchers fabricated each structure from a new ...
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