If a soft-bodied robot uses rigid actuators to move its body, then it isn't really soft now, is it? An experimental new caterpillar-inspired bot gets around that conundrum by using soft, collapsible ...

A new magnetically actuated metamaterial can twist, contract, and move like a robot without any motors, electronics, or internal power sources. Inspired by origami, the system—called a “meta bot”—uses ...