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Tiny rubber spheres used to make a programmable fluid


The spheres collapse under pressure, giving the fluid very unusual properties.

Building a robot that could pick up delicate objects like eggs or blueberries without crushing them took lots of control algorithms that process feeds from advanced vision systems or sensors that emulate the human sense of touch. But a few years and a couple of rejections later, Djellouli met Benjamin Gorissen, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Leuven, Belgium, who shared his interests. “Metafluids—liquids with tunable properties that do not exist in nature—were theorized by Federico Capasso and colleagues, who wanted to achieve a liquid with negative refractive index.

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Photo of Tiny rubber spheres

Tiny rubber spheres

Photo of programmable fluid

programmable fluid