Soft Robots Walk Off the 3D Printer—No Electronics Needed
Forget clunky metal limbs and tangled wires — the future of robotics might just be squishy, wobbly, and ready to walk right off your desktop. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh have pulled off something remarkable: they’ve created the world’s first soft robots that can walk straight out of the 3D printers that made them. No screws. No circuits. Just air, plastic, and a lot of innovation.
Squishy, Smart, and Ready to Roll
These palm-sized, four-legged bots may look like escapees from a sci-fi toy box, but they represent a major leap in robotics. Using a new open-source system called the Flex Printer, the team printed soft robots entirely from flexible plastics — no motors, wires, or electronics required. Once hooked up to a compressed air source, the bots inflate, wobble to life, and start walking — no assembly required.
This is more than a party trick. Soft robotics, which uses materials like silicone and flexible polymers instead of rigid metals, has long been hailed as the future of safe, adaptable machines. Think surgical assistants that can gently navigate the human body, or crawling bots that explore hazardous environments like nuclear sites or distant planets. But until now, building these robots has been slow, expensive, and limited to experts.
A Game-Changing Breakthrough
“Our hope is that this technology will help drive the next wave of research breakthroughs,” says lead developer Maks Gepner, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. “Without the long-standing manufacturing and design bottlenecks holding it back, we believe soft robotics is ready to make a major real-world impact.”
He’s not wrong. Just a few years ago, it could take weeks or even months to fabricate a functioning soft robot. Even the slightest flaw in molding or material behavior meant starting over from scratch. But now? The entire system — including the printer — costs under $500 and can be assembled from parts you can order online. First-time users can be up and printing within days.
Standing on the Squishy Shoulders of Giants
This breakthrough didn’t happen in a vacuum. The field of soft robotics has been building toward this moment for years. In 2016, Harvard researchers developed an octobot — a fully soft robot powered by chemical reactions instead of electronics. In 2019, researchers at MIT debuted soft robotic fish that could swim in real time without scaring marine life. And in 2021, a team in Japan printed a jellyfish-like robot designed to gently explore coral reefs.
But all of these required advanced lab setups, expensive materials, and highly specialized design knowledge. The University of Edinburgh’s Flex Printer changes the game by democratizing access — giving students, makers, artists, and researchers everywhere a tool to rapidly prototype soft machines.
No Chips, No Problem
Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of these new bots is what they don’t contain: electronics. Powered purely by air pressure, they offer a glimpse into a future where robots don’t rely on silicon chips or circuit boards. This is critical for environments where electronics might fail — such as inside MRI machines, underwater, or in extreme heat and radiation.
What’s Next?
By releasing the entire system as open-source, the Edinburgh team hopes to fuel a new wave of creative experimentation. From wearable tech and prosthetics to toys and exploratory space crawlers, the applications are limitless — and now accessible.
In a world where we expect robots to be smart, metallic, and intimidating, these soft, gentle creatures might just show us a different path forward — one that’s lighter, safer, and more playful.
Who knew the future of robotics would be this soft?
Related Article:
No Wires, No Waiting: These Soft Robots Walk Straight Off the 3D Printer – eeDesignIt.com
Sources:
A standardized platform for translational advances in fluidic soft systems: Device