Printable Robots
What are the components of a robot that could be produced through inkjet printing employing flexonics and organic semiconducting polymers? Certainly, it would include electronic circuits (including transistors, diodes and resistors). Inkjet printers have also been employed to print batteries, RFID chips (for radio identification tags), organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display screens and electro-actuated polymers used as artificial muscles.
Gregory Daigle has written a fascinating article on how "advances in inkjet technology forecast robotic origami", including the butterfly-bots pictured above.
If 2-D inkjet printing could enable these creations and more, imagine what will be possible with desktop manufacturing on your personal nanofactory!
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
Couple this with the recent advances in bioprinting synthetic human organs and we won't even have to bother with cloning! Just fire up the printer and make some new friends.
Posted by: George Elvin | June 29, 2006 at 05:39 PM