It is not a fragment of Frankenstein's monster, of Mary Shelley: Inanimate matter can be animated with a simple spray. The spray contains particles of iron, polyvinyl alcohol and gluten, which combine with water to form sticky magnetic skins or 'M-skins'.
Thanks to the magnetic properties of the aerosol, ordinary objects such as origami paper and cotton thread have been brought to life, according to A study published in Science Robotics.
Millirobots
The researchers captured images of the 'millirobots' rolling, swimming and walking, but they also performed tasks with a more relevant purpose: simulated biomedical procedures. Robotic catheters navigated narrow blood vessels and egg-shaped capsules delivered medications to the stomachs of live rabbits.
This is the magic of this spray, which proposes a minimalist approach to building milirobots by coating inanimate objects with a magnetic bonding compound spray. As seen in the video, the real object of this experiment is to create milirobots capable of entering the arteries or the stomach, and removing blockages thanks to movement, or releasing medications:
This approach allows covering a variety of one-dimensional objects with a thin enough film such as to preserve the original size, morphology and structure of objects while providing a performance of up to hundreds of times its own weight. Under the activation of a magnetic field, milirobots can demonstrate a variety of locomotor skills.
In addition, the magnetic film of the milirobots can be reprogrammed and disintegrated at any time. The liquid begins to disintegrate after about eight minutes in a strongly acidic environment (pH 1), but its durability lasts up to about 15 minutes if an additional layer of PVA is added. while if the iron particles are replaced with nickel particles it could remain stable for even more than half an hour..
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The news
An aerosol has been designed that turns inanimate materials into mobile insect-scale machines
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.