Hasta La Gadget!

Hey friends, you too can make a robot from perfectly ordinary household materials. Have a balloon and some coffee grounds lying around the house? Stick the grounds in the balloon and voila, you’ve got a super awesome, super grippy robot arm.

As for the rest of the robot arm, that’s going to require some serious electronic engineering–and a degree in advanced robotics certainly wouldn’t hurt, but at least you’re half of the way there, right?

The simple machine was devised by a team of robotics types in Chicago and New York. If the video is any indication, the device can pick up just about anything. In just under three minutes, the device picks up a spring, a jack, plastic tubing, a light bulb, an uncooked egg, pours a cup of water, and draws a square with a pen.

The Register explains the mechanics of the coffee and balloon concoction,

The manipulator works by pressing the soft balloon full of loose coffee grounds down on the object to be gripped. Then the air is sucked out of the balloon, causing the coffee granules to press together and lock into a rigid shape – just as they do when vacuum-packed. The object is now securely grasped by the manipulator, and can be released as desired by ending the suction on the granule-filled bulb.

A scientist involved with the project suggests that it “could be on the market tomorrow.” In the meantime, I can watch video of the arm picking up stuff all day long. Check it out in all of its glory, after the jump.