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Julia Bains

Blueprints of different robot designs. In the background, blueprints of hard, rigid robot designs are crossed out in red marker. The blueprint in the foreground shows an inchworm-like design.

Inching Towards Soft Robotics

Beloved characters like Pixar’s Wall-E and Star Wars’ R2-D2 are portrayed as bulky, rigid robots that can easily interact with humans. However, in the real world, such robots are rarely safe and effective enough to be used around humans and delicate objects. This is where soft robotics comes in!

A person holding a fork with a piece of cake on it. A smiling microalgae is overlaid on the image of the cake. The speech bubble coming out of the person's mouth reads "The Microorganism That Might Save Us".

The Microorganism That Might Save Us

Ten billion people by 2050. It’s a statistic nearly everyone has heard. Coupled with the impending climate crisis, it seems nearly impossible humanity will be able to produce enough food to nourish such a massive global population. But there is one emerging ‘superfood’ that embodies every sense of the term: microalgae.