MIT has developed a squishy robotic tentacle

A squishy robot from MIT that looks, feels, and even blows up like bubble gum is an expert navigator that can snake its way through a tricky maze without human help. It sounds silly, but the bot’s creators say this goofy design is a serious model for future robots that can work alongside people safely. “It looks like a balloon animal,” Andrew Marchese, a graduate student at MIT who was a key designer of the robot, said.