The T-1000 is a fictional character from the Terminator franchise played by American actor Robert Hammond Patrick Jr. Author: Taken from twitter
WASHINGTON, February 2. — An international team of scientists has created a robot that can melt and then solidify again on command to navigate through tight spaces or multitask.
According to expert witnesses, the new tech project is similar to Terminator 2’s terrifying antagonist, the T-1000’s advanced shapeshifting android, made from liquid metal and melted down to solidify again later and wreak all sorts of destruction.
Now scientists of various nationalities gathered at Carnegie Mellon University (based in Pennsylvania, California and Qatar) claim to have created a real version of the T-1000, a robot that can melt and move easily through small spaces. Video of this prototype performing clever stunts is already circulating on social media.
To create this rudimentary T-1000, an international team of scientists placed microscopic pieces of magnetic neodymium, boron and iron in liquid gallium, a metal with a very low melting point. Then, using magnets to make the miniature robot dissolve into a puddle, they guided it through the bars of the cage before it solidified back into its original form on the other side.
Magnetic particles cause ordinary material to respond to an alternating field, and with the help of induction, we can heat the conglomerate and induce phase transitions, Carmel Majidi, a mechanical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University, explained in a statement released by the academic center.
Majidi explained that the team behind the project was not inspired by a James Cameron film, but by sea cucumbers, sea creatures that can go from hard to soft when the need arises.
In a series of tests, the magnetically controlled miniature robots were able to jump over obstacles, climb walls, and split in half to perform a range of tasks, including soldering chains, administering drugs, and removing foreign objects from a simulated stomach.
Giving these robots the ability to switch between liquid and solid makes them more functional, said Chengfeng Pan, an engineer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the project’s principal investigator. The new T-1000 werewolf technology may find wide clinical and scientific applications in the future.
Source: Juventud Rebelde
