A tiny robot that folds from a hand into a walking humanoid
Researchers built one small 27-joint robot whose parts rearrange to become either a five-fingered hand or a mini walking humanoid. The same hand fingers slide down to become the robot's legs and arms.
Why it matters
Robots today are usually built for one job: hands grip things, and walking robots move around but have clumsy fingers. This design tests whether one machine can do both by reusing its parts, which could make future robots cheaper and more flexible. It is an early lab demonstration, so everyday robots like this are still far off.
Who's behind it: Ruogu Li and colleagues, Stanford University and collaborators.
Summary by the Lemma AI · how we grade