--- title: Meet the Pneubotics Soft Robots | TIME description: Kevin Albert and his team at Pneubotics showcases their soft robots, the safer, lighter generation of robotics technology. canonical: https://time.com/video/zTj1mFPv/ og:title: Meet the Pneubotics Soft Robots og:description: Kevin Albert and his team at Pneubotics showcases their soft robots, the safer, lighter generation of robotics technology. og:url: https://time.com/video/zTj1mFPv/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zTj1mFPv/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the Pneubotics Soft Robots twitter:description: Kevin Albert and his team at Pneubotics showcases their soft robots, the safer, lighter generation of robotics technology. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zTj1mFPv/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Meet the Pneubotics Soft Robots > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Meet the Pneubotics Soft Robots [Watch (HLS stream): Meet the Pneubotics Soft Robots](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zTj1mFPv.m3u8) (3:44)  _Published 2016-07-06. Kevin Albert and his team at Pneubotics showcases their soft robots, the safer, lighter generation of robotics technology._ --- Jul 27, 2023 8:22 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Meet Violet, The Robot Fighting Coronavirus](/video/LnPlfeqJ/) ### Meet Violet, The Robot Fighting Coronavirus [Meet Sawyer - The Newest Smart, Collaborative Robot from Rethink Robotics](/video/5jafDq5A/) ### Meet Sawyer - The Newest Smart, Collaborative Robot from Rethink Robotics [Obama Meets Asimo Robot](/video/vlMk0Tol/) ### Obama Meets Asimo Robot --- ## Transcript To the people of 1939, it was just like stepping to a door into the future. Miracle after miracle. When we finally have robots that can be in our home and be in our lives, that's when we've finally done it. [ MUSIC ] If you think about the type of robots you see on the automotive manufacturing line, these are large, rigid, industrial robots and they do a very good job of being precise, but they don't have the ability to react to their environment in any way. So if we ever imagined robots are gonna be next to us in our homes helping some of the jobs that aren't as fixed. We really need robots that can actually interact, can actually react to the world. And this is a shift in the way we build things. We've basically had to learn all the lessons of engineer nearing over again. [ MUSIC ] Soft Robotics have flexibility usually in its joint and it's skin. We've taken out drivetrains, we've taken out bearings, we've taken out gearboxes, we've taken out all of the things you expect to see in a machine. [ MUSIC ] By moving air around to different sections and compartments of the robot, we can actually make it move and go back and forth. [ MUSIC ] When we started it seemed pretty straightforward. Put some air and some fabric inflate it, it make the shape you want. The second you start to move those pieces around you start to realize there's a whole another degree of uncertainty that you didn't expect to deal with in the beginning. It's basically like trying to engineer with your towel. [ MUSIC ] So this a fabric cravat, this is a single Degree of freedom joint, so it moves side to side. And this looks pretty simple but there's a lot that goes into it. For soft robots, you really have to start at the material level. You use the right material for each task. And so by layering these materials, you can create very high strength robots for very lightweight Robot systems are particular very complex systems, where you got the electronics and mechanical, the control systems in reality you're developing a new thing, so we have to be open to hearing new ideas from pupil who come from very different backgrounds. [ MUSIC ] One of the parts of our robots that people don't recognize right away is that their fluid This is air above water because it's light weight. But underwater we can drive it with sea water. So we can toss [ UNKNOWN ] in the ocean. In fact we have them working there right now. NASA's interested in this because it's light weight. It can collapse down into really small volumes, small spaces, little spaces. So that's nice for sending things up to space. I actually have my kids come into our lab [ UNKNOWN ] Sometimes, and what I love is when they see [ UNKNOWN ] robot, they don't run away screaming. They run up and hug it. Every time we understand something new about the way these robots interact, and the way they touch the world, we kind of have this epiphany moment that's like, that's why our bodies [ MUSIC IN BACKGROUND ] Design that way. That's why we do things in a certain way so its just so much fun to get to those moments of understanding. [ MUSIC PLAYING ] Back in the industrial revolution. [ INAUDIBLE ] We changed the way we did things with machines. We did it again when the automotive and the internal combustion engine came out. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Each one of these jumps is just gonna make a new degree of capability. And that creates all kinds of opportunities. 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