A group of scientists made a working liquid metal robot

[thomdunn]

Originally published at: A group of scientists made a working liquid metal robot | Boing Boing

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[vytautas_malesh]

Sweet! Now they can start creating the Torment Nexus from the legendary dystopian sci-fi horror novel “Don’t Create the Torment Nexus”!

[anothernewbbaccount]

Somehow, Magnetoactive-liquid-solid-phase-transitional-matter-Man doesn’t seem to have quite the necessary superhero ring about it

[Mindysan33]

[anon52120741]

It moves at 1.5 meters per second? That seems… disturbingly…fast!

ETA: @anothernewbbaccount You could shorten that to something that would caused Marvel fans to lose their minds very easily though

[anothernewbbaccount]

@anon52120741

cause Marvel fans to lose their minds very easily

Haven’t they already?

[fuzzyfungus]

Is it a bad sign or a really bad sign that I’m just hoping that this won’t get adopted as a yet dumber culture war item? Tucker Carlson being histrionic about ivory tower elites engineering trans-matter would not be much of a stretch from the present state.

[Mister44]

I’m not entirely sure how it re-forms itself after that

It said peltier cooling in a mold.

I don’t understand how this is a robot. How does it move? How does it do any “work”? Like a metal that can melt and reform in a mold, that’s a parlor trick, though it could have interesting applications maybe? But I don’t see how this is a robot.

[blackanvil]

Makes some notes in his ongoing Terminus Est project plans.

[Professor59]

I, for one, welcome our new liquid metal overlords.

[teknocholer]

They don’t care.

[PPK]

@thomdunn

It “melts” when placed near a magnet

Nope, the melting is via induction heating:

@thomdunn

machines for foreign body removal and drug delivery in a model stomach.

No thanks, I’d rather not have my stomach cooked

[ghostbloke]

@Mister44

I don’t understand how this is a robot. How does it move? How does it do any “work”? Like a metal that can melt and reform in a mold, that’s a parlor trick, though it could have interesting applications maybe? But I don’t see how this is a robot.

Agreed. The demonstrations in these videos are not much different from pulling iron filings around to make a mustache on a Wooly Willy, except splitting would require two “wands.” The melting LEGO minifig model also leaves some of itself behind in the cage, so you would need to choose a material which adheres to the magnets but not to its surroundings to completely remove it. Video S7 and Video S9 arguably “perform work” (more like impart a force, like projectiles) but calling them “smart soldering robots” is a big stretch, as is “form screws” when they’re just plugging a hole in Video S10.