Watch a nanorobot build a microscopic house on the tip of a fiberoptic filament

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/29/watch-a-nanorobot-build-a-misc.html

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Even that size, it’s still going to cost over $500,000 in Toronto.

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Now that is a tiny house and all it needs are some tiny hipsters to move in.

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Sorry, is this really what the title claims? I see a microscopic house being cut and folded, but not by any nanorobots. Isn’t this actually a demonstration of how that lab can use macroscopic equipment to fold microscopic ‘origami’?

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Clearly you missed the shot of the tiny robot foreman directing the nanoexcavator.

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The setup uses six DoF (degree-of-freedom) microrobots.

http://projects.femto-st.fr/microrobotex/en

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image
a0a4a5494f03b45b2b13bbcbf8ef860f2d1385a6.jpeg1920×1200 394 KB
http://sol.semo.edu/mst3k/botbuilding/Nanites/Nanites1.jpg

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Yoinked!

Also, obligs…

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Came here to say the same thing, and it was the first comment. I feel you pain, brother.

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  1. I didn’t see any robot
  2. I didn’t “watch.” I was shown a series of stills.
  3. They spelled “explanation” wrong.
  4. Without actually hearing it, I will wager that the music they listen to is just a bunch of noise!
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You jest, but i stayed up another two minutes past my ‘seriously now; get some sleep’ hour precisely to see the tiny robot. I sort of imagined it would roll around extruding the house like a print head.

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I might be a bit weird, but I was almost as impressed by the fact that they had printed their names and logos (perfectly legibly!) on the end of the fiber-optic filament. How on earth do you do that? Did they first build the world’s smallest inkjet printer?

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But I am not afraid to consider the final question as to whether, ultimately – in the great future – we can arrange the atoms the way we want; the very atoms, all the way down!

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html

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I think I’m unclear on the concept. I mean, I long to see even a single degree-of-freedom microrobot, in or out of action, but… they’re not even in evidence at the link in your comment. Are micro/nano robots something like a quantum state of matter, or, like, do they require a particular state of mind, to become visible? Is the little house its own manufacturing nanobot?

I notice the microrobotex website’s “news” page consists of a single paragraph of lorem ipsum. This has me wondering if there’s a hoax afoot. But I want to believe! Maybe if I understood the words better, the nanorobots in the provided pictures would spring into view?

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I believe the lay public has been led to believe by media depictions that microbots are fully automated self-contained devices that move independently and have some kind of programming. While those are indevelopment, at this time it usually means a small rudimentary mechanism that can be toggled or turned. It’s not like they dropped six tiny automata on a fiberobtic cable and they decided to build a house. In the far right picture in the first set, you can see the assembly of a microscopic mechanism used in manufacture:

http://teams.femto-st.fr/nanorobotics/experimental-platform-micro-robotex

Note I’m not saying that’s an image of what they used to build the house. Here’s an animation of the concept behind the house:

Here’s a good overview:

If you have more questions about their work, I always recommend contacting them directly.

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