This Plant-Inspired 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: https://ve42.co/mb

Make your own Vine Robot! — https://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 https://ve42.co/HawkesLab​, and https://ve42.co/CHARM

B-roll footage of robots from the supplementary materials of (Hawkes et al., 2017) https://ve42.co/VineVideos​, and from Stanford University https://ve42.co/StanfordVideo

Additional info on the intubation vine robot here: https://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). — https://ve42.co/Hawkes2017

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. — https://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. — https://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. — https://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. — https://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 Ivan Tello
Filmed by Derek Muller
Thumbnail by Ignat Berbeci
Music from Epidemic Sound