Giving bug-like, flying robots a boost

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[Chikani]

MIT: robot weights less than one-fourth of a penny.
me: please, MIT, one of the world's most respected universities, can you use existing units of measurement

[Flumphinator]

There’s no way this technology will ever be misused.

[jonathanmoonga]

Wow, just wow, MIT I'm coming for you. I seriously hope I get in next year

[markusheimerl]

Great progress! Super talented team :) Cant wait for more results

[euviaofreesoul]

This makes me wonder how a fly or mosquito can fly so fast and so annoying and reproduce. What a complex structure such creature has possessed.

[dr.disrespect]

0:23 : "The rectangular microrobot which weighs less than one fourth of a penny..."
You americans will use literally anything to measure and describe properties of mass except for the metric system, won't you?

[Androidzombie]

Amazing tech, amazing video. Thank you for explaining things accurately while still managing to keep it simple for the average person to understand exactly what work is being done here. This is propper communication. Neri Oxman tends to have an issue explaining things simply like what was done here, even though she works at MIT. It is a real shame, because the work she and her team are doing is really amazing as well, but it is communicated in non simple terms almost in a pretentious way. Great video though seriously. This is actually really cool.

[nigelsmith]

I know it's science fiction but in the Battletech universe the battlemechs (Mecha/Robots) are powered by a fusion reactor and they use what is called Myomer fibre which is a electrically activated stretchy cord that contracts when a current is passed through it
This elastomer product is a step in this same direction

[catface]

I imagine this tech could best be used in bionics rather than drones

[tilak]

Now I am sure that Secret agencies have a lot more tech toys than we imagine!

[arnauddecuyper]

all fancy high tech words but when you talk about its weight you say "it weighs less than 1/4 of a penny"

[goldenmagnolia]

Very cool! Would be interesting to see how y'all plan to power them, without being tethered!

[subhamchaudhary]

Waiting for this to be asked in SAT 2022 in science passage

[RayMerrell]

It helps to vacuum your goop before application too and maybe think about building a vac chamber around that centrifuge.

[edwardlee]

Is 500V low voltage?!? How is this different from the current literature on thin DEAs?

[silverywingsagain]

I feel like I've seen this done a dozen ways by a dozen different teams. They all leave out one critical component, power. None of these sorts of things fly under their own power. No battery, no engine, no reaction... They're all propelled by something external, in this case the copper wires supplying a "low voltage". I'm all for miniaturization but wouldn't it be better to take the smallest existing drones (which are pretty small to begin with) and work on further miniaturizing that? I could see the tech behind it being useful in medicine maybe but the whole "look we made a bug thing fly for 2 seconds" is getting old.

[winkus]

We'll soon have an army of robot fighting mosquitoes and flies.

[renatoximenes]

I watched the transcendental film for the second time, but now I realize that humanity is really moving towards unbelievable discoveries and technological developments.

[Parasitomusical]

I have nine years and I'm all ready thinking about going to MIT to study

[AvanaVana]

Perfect example of a seemingly benign achievement in science that may lead to a dystopian future and constant surveillance.