The Conveniently Flat Robot That Can Be Shipped To Your Door

Robots seem to be a hot topic of conversation these days, as they’re cropping up everywhere – maybe even on your doorstep.

A team of Swiss researchers came up with the idea of making a robot inspired by origami. It can turn itself into a large number of three-dimensional shapes, and can fold and unfold itself like a flat-pack from Ikea, too.

The researchers, based out of Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), believe this could be ideal in tight spaces, like those that would be common in space.

They call the bot Mori3, and EPFL director Jamie Paik spoke more about their hopes for the project in Nature Machine Intelligence.

“Our aim with Mori3 is to create a modular, origami -like robot that can be assembled and disassembled at will depending on the environment and task at hand.”

Researcher Christoph Belke says it took some trial and error to get to the end result.

“We had to rethink the way we understand robotics. These robots can change their own shape, attach to each other, communicate and reconfigure to form functional and articulated structures. Of course, a general-purpose robot like Mori3 will be less effective than specialized robots in certain areas. That said, Mori3’s biggest selling point is its versatility.”

Check out the video with more info!

This 90s kid can’t help but think of Rosie from The Jetson’s…and honestly, some general help around the house would be really nice.