Robots are usually only hands dass-- hands-but some researchers of the University of Chicago and Cornell University (with a little help from iRobot) a decidedly different approach for their so-called universal robot grippers have taken. As you can see above is actually the gripper a balloon that can match and handle just about any small object and hang enough to pick it up on it firmly. What is the secret? After much testing, the researchers found that the best substance the balloon fill with ground coffee was-to grab an object, the gripper is simply a vacuum in the balloon (similar to a vacuum sealed bag coffee) created and it is then able, just leave through the release of the vacuum of the object. Simple, but it works. Head over to the break, check it out in action.[Thanks, Jeremy]
