ZhejiangUniversity
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Soft manta ray robot could watch over coral reefs
It looks like Harvard's octopus robot is going to have some stiff competition. Chinese researchers have crafted a soft manta ray-inspired bot that could surveil the seas without harming nature in the process. Rather than rely on stiff metal or plastic for its body, the artificial swimmer is made out of a combination of flexible polymer (for its muscles) and silicone (for most everything else) that shouldn't damage sea life. And importantly, there's no motor -- the ray gets around using a lithium battery whose cyclic voltage causes the muscles to bend, flapping fins in the process. Electromagnets help steer the tail.
Mischief managed: researchers produce an invisibility cloak in just 15 minutes
Grab your Marauder's Map and get ready to roll. Researchers at Zhejiang University in China have pioneered a new, time-efficient method of producing real world invisibility cloaks made out of Teflon. While it isn't the first time we've come across an invisibility cloak, it is the first to make use of an innovation called topology optimization. Thus far, physicists working on invisibility have largely relied on metamaterials -- synthetic materials that alter the behavior of light as it interacts with objects -- but the cost and difficulty of manufacturing them has made them an impractical option. The Zhejiang team has circumvented those obstacles by creating a so-called "eyelid" out of Teflon, the computer-altered topology of which minimizes the distortion of light as it moves past a cloaked object -- and it only took 15 minutes to produce. Since the Teflon eyelid is only invisible to microwaves, it won't enable you to roam the halls of Hogwarts unseen, but the technology could potentially open up new avenues in exploring invisibility on other wavelengths. To learn more, read the full paper at the source link below.
Chinese researchers create ping-pong playing robots, trash talk still needs work
Wu and Kong are the latest additions to a pantheon of robot athletes. Sure, their eye-mounted motion-tracking cameras may not make for the most emotive games you'll ever see, but we can't help but be impressed by all those precision shots. The robot twins were developed at China's Zhejiang University and, we'll admit, compared to getting hustled at pool or being struck out by a baseball robot, there's something a bit friendlier about a game of table tennis with our future oppressors. You can marvel at the duo's bionic backspin in action after the break. We're massive Wu fans.
