Morphing Robots from the Pentagon - Alien Tech?

At the moment the tiny robot - a sheet just half a millimetre thick, scarcely thicker than a piece of paper - only folds itself into a boat, like a child's toy, or a "paper glider" plane shape. But it is anticipated that in future it will be used to create full-sized cars and aircraft that morph as they move, or robots that can "flow" like mercury into small openings, or multipurpose military uniforms that can adapt to different environments.

Researchers at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) launched the project in 2007 in conjunction with Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a small sheet of stiff tiles and "joints" of elastomer, “studded with thin foil actuators and flexible electronics. The demonstration material contains 25 total actuators, divided into five groupings. A shape is produced by triggering the proper actuator groups in sequence,” according to a statement by Robert Wood, the head of the Harvard research team.

Telegraph
Holy Crap! This is pretty freaky stuff. What's even freakier is to think that 100 years ago the "horseless wagon" was ground breaking.

Here is a link directly the demo video:
Video

Alien tech maybe?

-Mods, please kill the other thread, I put it in the wrong place.

Originally posted by gncnew
Alien tech maybe?

Very neat stuff. But what leads you to believe it may be alien technology and not humanity further raising the pinnacle of we can achieve?

reply to post by gncnew


hi mate, good post, interesting stuff, star and flag but seriously, i think this belongs in the science and technology forum or military !.

im really not understanding you leap of faith to alien tech! what on earth would make you think that?

also im not understanding your woeful underestimation of human scientific advances! you should start reading up a bit more, this hasn't been a sudden magical leap in human science, this has taken years and years of research and hard work and constant advancement, we make breakthroughs every day but it has nothing to do with aliens! and its not as if this stuff is ready for deployment, its still probably got years of development ahead before it has practical use! and although its impressive its hardly anything out of the ordinary, its basically a motorised piece of origami a paper plane with programmable motors! its not the T1000 ! lol in fact ive had similar plastic puzzles when i was younger that had hinges and obviously not programmable motors, i think it was made by rubix of rubix cube fame, ill see if i can find one online!.

thanks

rich

[edit on 30-6-2010 by RICH-ENGLAND]

[edit on 1-7-2010 by RICH-ENGLAND]

very cool stuff! in my opinion i think we are a lot more advanced than what we show to the public. Im sure the government has some stuff we could only dream of.

Hahah, wow, this is really interesting and amazing! Great technology there.

I don't see the connection with Aliens, however. I would need some evidence to support Aliens is where we got this kind of technology. My opinion is open to be swayed!

Kind regards

I'm with the majority of those in this thread saying that this is not "Alien Tech", In fact, for someone to actually think so, to me, shows a distinct technological ignorance.

Technological ignorance is why some folks try to jump to the least likely conclusion first. It saves them the time, schooling and effort it takes to understand technology.

Again, ignorance is the enemy here, not the pentagon with their perfectly explainable science project.

found what i was looking for, rubiks magic, a childs toy from the 80s, now in not saying that these are even close but there's a similar folding of flat sheet principle behind them, im just showing that although this thing is impressive, its hardly beyond our capability when we had manual folding childrens toys in the 80s,, and im quite sure there was one even closer in resemblance to this high tech gadget with an almost identical folding structure, i will keep looking but for now, here is rubiks magic : www.youtube.com...

thanks

rich

Awesome! Leave it up to the fattest nation in the world to automate origami.

reply to post by zroth


the aliens aren't fat!

thanks

rich

[edit on 1-7-2010 by RICH-ENGLAND]

Cool stuff! Is this the first baby step to Transformers? I could see a material with a lot smaller units perhaps millions, maybe even nano size, computer programed to morph into all sorts of shapes...

Sector Seven backengineered this stuff from Megatron.

Just wait till we upgrade the Battle Android Troopers with it.

reply to post by hawkiye


quite possibly but at the moment im struggling to think of a practical application for it, only things i can think of is changing the aerodynamic properties on the surfaces of aeroplanes and cars if it could be made into huge sheets of extremely small triangles and was covered in some elastic kind of material so as to not cause drag, different speeds require different aerodynamics so you could change the wing surface of a plane or change the hood or spoilers/splitters of a car when increasing or decreasing speed!

thanks

rich

autto bots deploy to protect the all spark!! but in all seriousness this is cool ive been waiting for robots for years!has that one insanely smart asian guy (aplogize in advanced totaly would butcher his name)michal ozaku have to say about this as he seems to be an expert on this

reply to post by gncnew


stop motion film

Sorry it took me so long to respond. Been actually working all day. Anyway - I was thinking more along the lines of this being back-engineered tech because this has literally no useful application as things stand today.

But, if say you were trying to make robotic materials and/or equipment for a long journey where you wouldn't be close to resupply and you couldn't quickly manufacture more stuff you needed -

How good would it be if you simply brought along just a couple of "morphing" tools/robots. They could become anything you needed.

Or how about having spacecraft that could morph their shape to simulate earth-built craft to allow more blatant activity?

I guess what I'm saying is that this has no practical application coming from the Pentagon researchers... usually with them necessity is the mother of invention, not just play-time with technology.

Originally posted by gncnew
Anyway - I was thinking more along the lines of this being back-engineered tech because this has literally no useful application as things stand today.

I'm sure the engineers that spent a good chunk of their lives developing this amazing technology would appreciate "the Aliens" getting credit for their hard work..

And the article you linked names just a few of the possible applications.

It is hoped that, in the not too distant future, a soldier (or engineer) can carry a can, like a paint can, in his or her vehicle, filled with shape-shifting particles of varying size. By telling the particles via computer what shape they need - for example, a specific size spanner - he or she can make the particles form that shape. Further down the line it could create clothing that can keep its wearer cool by day and warm by night, or aircraft's wings that can change aerodynamic shape in flight.

reply to post by draknoir2


I was in the military for 8 years and now I work in the defense contractor industry - the Pentagon doesn't have cash laying around for random science projects.

I'm only proposing the question here in the "Aliens and UFOs" thread...

Let me put it this way - in my experience, the Pentagon often finds useful military applications for existing cutting edge technology. However - they very rarely develop new technologies on the hopes that they can maybe find an application for it.

That's the kind of thing that MIT does.

So - is this an instance where the technology has been back engineered via military controlled research?

Doesn't it seem at least plausible that this should have come from a research facility (like a university) or at least a commercial interest?

Again - the military doesn't just experiment with stuff they hope they may be able to find a good use for... that whole taxpayer budget thing gets in the way of that usually.

Some info on the agency that "developed" this:

DARPA’s mission is to maintain technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security. We also create technological surprise for our adversaries.

DARPA

Some of their other achievements since their creation in 1958 (11 years after Rosewell?)

1. The Internet
   
2. Stealth Fighter
   
3. Gravity Anomaly for Tunnel Exposure
   
4. Space, Near-Space and Airborne Sensors and Structures
   
5. Orbital Express Space Operations Architecture
   
6. Unmanned Combat Air Systems
   

And now we add "Morphing Millimeter Thick Robots" to that list?

Maybe this should tie into a thread about DARPA being a cover for the U.S. government's back engineering of Alien tech?

[edit on 1-7-2010 by gncnew]

[edit on 1-7-2010 by gncnew]

Originally posted by gncnew
reply to post by draknoir2

 

I was in the military for 8 years and now I work in the defense contractor industry - the Pentagon doesn't have cash laying around for random science projects.

I'm retired Air Force [20 years] and a former defense contractor [Northrop] myself, and am no more qualified than you to declare this a random science project for which the Pentagon has no cash.

this is the kind of tech i love,think of the possibilities.
That's why i love DARPA there think out side the box
attitude forget that throw away the box!

i once read that DARPA has a 99% fail rate!
but that 1% oh that 1%.amazing.

Drake
All I'm saying is that you and I both know the military wastes lots of money and time on things but very rarely on unfocused research.

Also - taking into account the other things that have come out of DARPA over the years - where are the press releases of that technology before its culmination into a functional weapons and/or support system?

I posted this here because to me it fits the mold of stuff that we "develop" with no obvious creation trail. We go from Japanese robot prom dates to real life transformers ... Made of millimeter thick material....

To me when I see the govn't poop out golden eggs all of a sudden I start to wonder. That's all.