WATCH: Squishy 'Octobot' Moves Autonomously

A pneumatic network, in red, is embedded within the octobot's entirely soft body and elastic arms, in blue. A pneumatic network, in red, is embedded within the octobot's entirely soft body and elastic arms, in blue. The squishy eight-legged robot described in the journal Nature is made entirely out of soft, flexible materials, runs on hydrogen peroxide, and looks like a 2-centimeter-tall baby octopus. It is a step forward for robotics, which has long relied on machines with hard skeletons (think The Terminator), or at least with rigid moving parts (like this other octopus-like guy designed by the Italian robot scientist Cecilia Laschi). In their paper, the authors say the systems behind their invention, which you can watch move in the video below, "may serve as a foundation for a new generation of completely soft, autonomous robots."