Ants are among the most industrious creatures on Earth, so it's only fitting that engineers would look to them for inspiration when designing small robots that can collaborate on complex tasks and maneuver through uneven territory. Engineers at University of Notre Dame created a simple but effective swarm of six-inch'robot' ants that were able to overcome obstacles and terrain individually, and link up to form longer chains when they couldn't accomplish a task alone. Each automaton was equipped with a micro-controller and a lithium polymer battery. They also had a LED light sensor at the front for alerting the swarm and magnetic touch sensors at both ends that would allow them to link up with one another. Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin, an electrical engineering professor at Notre Dame who worked on the robotic insects, told SYFY Wire she thought their best use would be in space exploration.

At first glance you might mistake this worm-like robot as a child's toy. But the innovative machine is the world's first 3D-printed robot that can move forwards or backwards in a wave-like motion. Its designers hope to miniaturise the robot to make it small enough to swallow, allowing it to crawl along through the intestines to actively visualise the digestive system. The innovative machine is the world's first 3D-printed robot that can move forwards or backwards in a wave-like motion The device is the world's first 3D-printed robot that can move forwards or backwards in a wave-like motion. It can climb over obstacles or crawl through unstable terrain like sand and grass, reaching top speeds of 57 centimetres/second – five times faster than similar robots.

That's a 3D printed shell around a sea-slug mouth muscle. The cyborg's leg is a sea slug's mouth. The robot, built from printed parts and organic material, moves on land like a sea turtle. There is no feeling to the partially organic machine. An external electrical field provides stimulation, and the robot moves.

Computer scientists at MIT have created a 3D-printed robot that requires such little human intervention it practically walks out of the printer on its own. Researchers from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have pioneered a system that allows printing solid and liquid materials simultaneously. This means their tiny proof-of-concept creation can have a built-in hydraulic system consisting of 12 ready-assembled pumps. All the human needs to do is attach a motor and a battery. "Our approach, which we call'printable hydraulics', is a step towards the rapid fabrication of functional machines," said CSAIL director Daniela Rus.

A team of experts from MIT have employed a novel 3D printing technique to combine solids and liquids in order to create a hydraulic six legged robot. MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers reveal the first-ever technique for 3-D printing robots, that involves printing solid and liquid materials at the same time, in a new paper. This interesting bot was created using a 3D printer that had commercial value. A series of bellows provided traction force to the mechanical legs and they were filled with liquid during the period of printing. This is a progressive step in 3D printing since instead of creating individual components, whole active systems can be manufactured.