This Unstoppable Robot Could Save Your Life

This robot has applications to archaeology, space exploration, and search and rescue - with a simple elegant design inspired by a plant. Sign up to Morning Brew for free today: ve42.co/mb
Make your own Vine Robot! - www.vinerobots.org
Special thanks to A/Prof. Elliot Hawkes, Nicholas Naclerio, Margaret Coad, David Haggerty for appearing in this video and showing off your amazing robots. For more info on vine (and other types of) robots check out ve42.co/HawkesLab, and ve42.co/CHARM
Research at UCSB supported in part by the National Science Foundation grant 1944816, by an Early Career Faculty grant from NASA’s Space Technology Research Grants Program, and by the Packard Foundation.
B-roll footage of robots from the supplementary materials of (Hawkes et al., 2017) ve42.co/VineVideos, and from Stanford University ve42.co/StanfordVideo
Additional info on the intubation vine robot here: www.wardenchem.com/vine
References: Hawkes, E. W., Blumenschein, L. H., Greer, J. D., & Okamura, A. M. (2017). A soft robot that navigates its environment through growth. Science Robotics, 2(8). - ve42.co/Hawkes2017
N. D. Naclerio, A. Karsai, M. Murray-Cooper, Y. Ozkan-Aydin, E. Aydin, D. I. Goldman, E. W. Hawkes, Controlling subterranean forces enables a fast, steerable, burrowing soft robot. Sci. Robot. 6, eabe2922 (2021).
robotics.sciencemag.org/conte...
Coad, M. M., Blumenschein, L. H., Cutler, S., Zepeda, J. A. R., Naclerio, N. D., El-Hussieny, H., ... & Okamura, A. M. (2019). Vine robots: Design, teleoperation, and deployment for navigation and exploration. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 27(3), 120-132. - ve42.co/Coad2019
Blumenschein, L. H., Coad, M. M., Haggerty, D. A., Okamura, A. M., & Hawkes, E. W. (2020). Design, modeling, control, and application of everting vine robots. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 7. - ve42.co/Blumenschein2020
Haggerty, D. A., Naclerio, N. D., & Hawkes, E. W. (2019, November). Characterizing environmental interactions for soft growing robots. In 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (pp. 3335-3342). IEEE. - ve42.co/Haggerty2019
Naclerio, N. D., Hubicki, C. M., Aydin, Y. O., Goldman, D. I., & Hawkes, E. W. (2018, October). Soft robotic burrowing device with tip-extension and granular fluidization. In 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (pp. 5918-5923). IEEE. - ve42.co/Naclerio19
Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Anna, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Oleksii Leonov, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Animation by Ivy Tello
Filmed by Derek Muller
Thumbnail by Ignat Berbeci
Music by Jonny Hyman and from Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.com

[@creeperizing4184]

Imagine being burried inside a colapsed building, pitch black and feeling a giant tentacle touching you

[@beawolfe]

The year is 2050. Your apartment building is on fire. A fire engine pulls up. The top of it unhinges and it releases six thousand hissing purple tentacles.

[@ethanchapman969]

This would be huge for ecologists studying burrowing species. The current state of the art is a camera attached to the end of a fiber optic wire but it’s notoriously tricky to deal with hard turns branching passages or even uneven ground surfaces

[@lastsoul4991]

8:20

[@me262omlett]

Kinda scary if I‘m in a collapsed building and an oversized noodle worm just comes by to say hi.

[@caller145]

Imagine being in a burning collapsed building stuck under some concrete and a giant tenticle comes to save you

[@johnlshilling1446]

The demonstration of penetration into sand reminded me of a friend, back in the 90s, that was building a riverbank dock and party platform/deck. The riverbank and bottom were made of a hard, but saturated red clay. My friend clamped a small copper tubu to each of the pillars. The ends were pinched, creating a tiny jet nozzle that extended an inch beyond the pillar bottom, and bent slightly towards the center. When the tube was attached to a small pressure washer, the pillar was positioned where it was needed and the water jet softened the clay directly below the pillar, allowing the weight of the pillar to penetrate up to the 6' needed for securing it into the soil. This was at least 10X faster than driving the pillars, and the suction of the saturated clay held them tighter than a frogs butt. It was amazing. Each pole simply sank into the "mud" until the water was turned off. With enough pillars, the rest of the structure was a "piece of cake"... All accomplished in an afternoon by beer drinking hillbillies..!

[@drcalisan]

For the intubation tubing, if the robot gives the trachea branch late it will push the trachea lid (epigglotis) shut or even damage it. The string arms you build was good, you could use it to direct the robot to the trachea. Here is another thought, the patient will have a lot of secretions that can fill up and decrease the oxygenation and the secretion needs to be aspirated. We send a second tube down the entubation tube to aspirate. The robot needs a lumen to pass an aspiration tube. Or maybe the robot can be a guide to send a classical intubation tube down from within.

[@riftwalker4411]

Robots back then : Humanoid, rigid, and futuristic looking

[@mel0dymak3r]

The idea of being trapped in a building and just seeing hundreds of tentacles with little camera eyes on them extend in through windows is wild.

[@ihaveaplan.ijustneedmoney.9777]

The level of professionalism and restraint to not compare it to phallic imagery is impressive. 😂

[@adenbryant4153]

How well would this robot work underwater and or on the surface of water? And if temperatures got too high would it pop like a balloon? What would happen if part of the robot froze? I'd like to see more of this robot!

[@MrGutzs]

“This is a robot that can grow to 100s of times its size and it can’t be stopped”

[@EpicGamerEG]

Big Hero 6 bro.

[@TheXTVproductions]

I'm curious if you could use a good durable material on a more rudimentary use and use this as a drain cleaner.

[@damico.j1004]

There’s a very similar product in plumbing for collapsed drain lines. A hose is forced through the center of a pipe with hydraulic pressure. It’s used mostly for clay sewage pipes that are notorious for collapsing with age.

[@nobodyknows3180]

This holds a lot of promise for makers of balloon animals as well.

[@ses7740]

"Where did you get this idea?"

[@jmorrison5206]

Similar concepts were investigated a couple of decades ago and called “topographic” because of their intrinsic conformation to the structure being intubated. They were considered as potentially improving such procedures as enteroscopy. A topographic colonoscope was actually developed , the “Aeroscope.” While it showed promised, I never saw production models.

[@yarahelal9412]

this is absolutely genius, wow. i can't wait to see how much further they develop.