Autonomous locomotion simply with tubes as limbs, and no brain?🎈. Yes, through physical synchronization! Our article is out today in Science (@ScienceMagazine). Read the article: Authors: @alb_comoretto, Mannus Schomaker, @BasOvervelde . More below.(1/6)

Great podcast about our latest article on Science (@ScienceMagazine) by @NakedScientists! 🧪. 🐙🎧 Listen: 📝 Article:

RT @ScienceMagazine: Using only airflow and simple physical design—resulting in a structure that looks like a roadside “inflatable tube dan….

RT @NerdyChristie: This totally tubular robot doesn’t need a centralized processing system to hop around on land or swim in the water—it re….

RT @CienciaDelCope: Este robot blando no piensa con la cabeza, sino con los «pies». 🤖 Un equipo de ingenieros crea un robot blando capaz de….

RT @TechXplore_com: #A #SoftRobot powered only by air achieves rapid, coordinated movement—walking, hopping, and swimming—without any brain….

RT @PopSci: And relatively speaking, it's faster than a Ferrari.

RT @arstechnica: Dutch scientists built a brainless soft robot that runs on air

(6/6).In the past few years, playing with these devices taught me that seemingly simple objects hide a great deal of complexity, ready to be explored. 🤹‍♂️. Thanks to co-authors Mannus Schomaker and @BasOvervelde for this fun adventure!. @softrobotmatter @_amolf @NewsfromScience

(5/6).Robots with coupled limbs display responsive behaviors: they autonomously avoid obstacles and even change locomotion gait when transitioning from ground to water, without control inputs! All of this by moving pretty fast and efficiently. 💃

(4/6).By physical synchronization of multiple limbs through internal interconnections or interactions with the environment, robust and fast locomotion gaits dynamically emerge without the need for centralized processors. They go in sync even at 300 oscillations per second!

(3/6).The tubes become self-oscillating limbs of locomoting robots, intrinsically coordinating their (asymmetric) stepping motion!

(2/6).We show that a soft tube undergoes kink wave instabilities when powered with a constant stream of air. Spontaneously, kinks form, travel, and then disappear along the tube itself.

RT @SumitMohanty91: Excited to represent @softrobotmatter @_amolf at #APSSummit25 tomorrow. If you are at @APSphysics Anaheim, do check ou….

Petra Vastenhouw wrote a beautiful interview piece about my time at @MIT, where I worked with @sam_gollob, @ellentroche and @kaitpb on autonomous soft robots. 🦠🪼 What did I find? Interactions are key, both for robots and among us researchers 🤝. @_amolf.

RT @kaitpb: I’m super excited to share my lab's most recent collaboration with even in a paper in Glass Structures & Engineering: Additive….

RT @CranfordMATTER: Cant forget to promote my latest editorial, recapping some recent twitter "drama" about what constitutes "science" and….

RT @zhigangsuo: The function of an engine is to produce motion. In the first century AD, Hero of Alexandria described a steam engine. Set….

RT @PrakashLab: A surprise gift of « new curve crease origami » we call Lacrygami brought to us by a single cell (this is the first example….

RT @softrobotmatter: Discover how connected but independent units find their way toward the light without communicating! The article publis….