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Engineering

Designing a Soft Robotic Gripper with Jamming-Based Stiffness Control

Quick fact

By filling a gripper with coffee grounds and pulling a vacuum, you can change its stiffness by up to 100 times, allowing it to conform to a fragile object and then lock its shape to gain a firm hold.

Why this is interesting

Imagine a robotic hand that can be as soft as a marshmallow to pick up a grape, then instantly harden like a rock to lift a heavy weight. How can one gripper do both?