DARPA Robot Uses A Balloon and Coffee Grounds To Pick Things Up

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You’ve got to hand it to the folks at DARPA–they’re always looking for something new and interesting to build, which in turn may well make it to us at some point. And now, they’ve figured out a whole new way to get a robot to grab things, and it’s done with two unlikely elements: a balloon, and coffee grounds.

That’s a pair of concepts you never expect to see linked together, especially around a DARPA project, but nonetheless, that’s how it works.

And yes, I know it sounds like a particularly bizarre episode of MacGyver, but basically, what DARPA did here was fill the balloon with the coffee grounds, and then pump air into the balloon which in turn causes the coffee grounds to mold themselves around the object in question, allowing a tight seal to form which in turn lets a robot arm, attached to the balloon / coffee ground configuration, pull up on or otherwise manipulate the object in question.

You can see from the pic above that it does a pretty good job of both lifting heavy things and delicate things, and this is owing to, reportedly, a strange principle of the coffee grounds, which essentially allows them to function like a whole bunch of interlocking gear teeth, settling into place and then locking around the object it’s dispatched to grab.

The product “could be on the market tomorrow”, reportedly, based on the ease of manufacturing the device and the common nature of the components (anyone out there have a balloon and coffee grounds at home? If not, how long would it take you to get them–more or less than one hour?), though admittedly the robot arm part of the whole thing would be a bit more exotic. Still though, for places needing robot arms, or just wanting them, for various tasks, it’s possible that widespread use of robot arm technology may be coming in the not too distant future.