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Engineers
at the University of California San Diego have developed a new method that
doesn't require any special equipment and works in just minutes to create soft,
flexible, 3D-prnted robots.
The
innovation comes from rethinking the way soft robots are built: instead of
figuring out how to add soft materials to a rigid robot body, the UC San Diego
researcher started with a soft body and added rigid features to key components.
The strictures were inspired by insect exoskeletons, which have both soft and rigid
parts — the researchers called their creations
“flexoskeletons
(柔性外骨骼)”.The new method allows for the construction of soft
components for robots in a small bit of the time previously needed and for a
small bit of the cost.
“We
hope that these flexoskeletons will lead to the creation of a new class of soft
robots, ” said Nick Gravish, a mechanical
engineering professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at the UC San Diego
and the paper's senior
author. “We want to make soft robots easier to build for researchers all over
the world.”
The
new method makes it possible to build large groups of flexoskeleton robots with
little hand assembly (装配)as well as
assemble a library of Lego-like components so that robot parts can be easily
swapped.
Researchers
detail their work in the April 7 issue of the journal Soft Robotics. The team plans to make their designs available to
researchers at other institutions as well as high schools.
One
flexoskeleton component takes 10 minutes to print and costs less than $1.
Flexokeleton printing can be done on most low-cost commercially available
printers. Printing and assembling a whole robot takes under two hours.
The
final goal is to create an assembly line that prints whole flexoskeleton robots
without any need for hand assembly. These small robots could do as much work as
one massive robot on its own — or more.
(1)
What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?
A . The origin of the new method.
B . The function of the new method.
C . The advantages of the new method.
D . The cost of the new method.
(2)
What's Nick's attitude towards flexoskeletons?
A . Indifferent.
B . Skeptical.
C . Curious.
D . Hopeful.
(3)
What will researchers intend to do with flexoskeletons?
A . Benefit moss students.
B . Produce a lot of flexoskeleton robots.
C . Build robots by hand.
D . Create many larger ones.
(4)
What can be the best title for the text?
A . New Robos Made of Special Equipment and Materials
B . A New Method of Building Giant, Soft and Flexible Robots
C . Flexoskeletons Make Soft Robots Faster and Cheaper to Make
D . Flexoskeletons Create Lots of Soft Robots with Hand Assembly
答案: A
D
B
C