Mobee: Harvard's Self- Assembling Robotic Bee

Like playing with origami? What about a folded miniature robot that self-assemblies like pop-up books? Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory researchers invented the Monolithic Bee (Mobee), an origami like robot bee.

Pratheev Sreetharan, the lead engineer, invented the production technique inspired by pop-up books and origami, allowing clones of tiny robots to be mass-produced in sheets. Mobee works by having a surrounding "assembly scaffold" attached to the bee-bot by tiny hinges. When the scaffold is opened, it folds the robot's joints, soldering them with brass and locking it into place with liquid metal, this turns it into a 3D model 2.4 mm tall in less than one second. 


The scaffold is later removed by laser cutting, releasing the miniature robot-bee. The design is made of 18 layers of different materials: carbon fiber, a plastic film called Kapton, titanium, brass, ceramic, and adhesive sheets are laminated together in a thin, laser-cut design. This technique will allow microbots to be rapidly mass-fabricated, assembled, and deployed.
We also recommend watching: "Hiriko: MIT Media Lab's Urban Folding Car" and "Robert Lang: The Power of Modern Origami". 

Mobee: Harvard's Self- Assembling Robotic Bee

The Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory's research focuses on the design, fabrication, control, and analysis of biologically-inspired microrobots and soft robots.