Harvard SEAS, the university's engineering and applied sciences school, is the research source behind this video, and the work comes out of one of the most established labs in soft robotics. The technique was led by graduate student Jackson Wilt and former postdoctoral researcher Natalie Larson, working in the lab of Jennifer Lewis, the Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. That pedigree matters here: this isn't a hobbyist demo, it's a peer-reviewed advance published in the journal Advanced Materials.
The video breaks down rotational multimaterial 3D printing, a technique where a single nozzle extrudes two materials at once, a flexible outer shell and a dissolvable inner channel made from a polymer similar to hair gel. By rotating the nozzle as it prints, the researchers can program exactly how and where a structure will bend once the inner channel is washed away and the hollow shell is pressurized with air. The team demonstrated the method by printing a spiral flower pattern and a five-fingered hand-shaped gripper with working knuckles, all without the casts and molds traditional soft robotics relies on.
What makes this more than a materials science curiosity is where it could go next. The researchers point to surgical robotics and assistive devices as immediate applications, precisely because this method skips the multi-step fabrication process that usually limits how complex a soft robot's shape can be. A printer that can encode bending behavior directly into a channel's geometry means faster iteration for devices that need to move gently through the human body or assist with rehabilitation.
Who is this for:
Robotics engineers, biomedical engineering students, and anyone following advances in soft robotics and medical device manufacturing.
