Inflating spider corpse creates robotic claw game of nightmares

A graduate student at Rice University discovered a dead spider in the hallway after rearranging a few things. She did a quick search to find the answer to her question. Why not use the bodies of dead spiders as tiny air-powered grippers to pick up and maneuver small electronic parts?

Yap and her colleagues did the same thing. They made a dead wolf spider into a gripping tool with just a single step. The process was outlined in a new paper. One day, the authors think the gripper could be used in the assembly of microelectronics.

The lab specializes in soft robotics, which shuns the usual hard plastic, metal, and electronics in favor of more unconventional materials. Chemical reactions, pneumatics, or even light can be used to power hydrogels and elastomers. A lot of the inspiration for the designs of roboticists is found in nature. The OctaGlove is designed to grip slippery objects underwater.

Spiders integrate both rigid and soft components, which makes them fascinating and inspiring. Their legs are controlled by unique means. Spiders don't have the same muscles as humans. They only have flexor muscles that allow their legs to bend in and out. They can't pressurize their bodies when they die. They like that. We were trying to find a way to use this mechanism.

Spider-inspired pneumatics, joints, and muscles can be designed by past researchers, but it takes a lot of work to make them. Yap et al. note that bio hybrid systems require careful maintenance. One paper reported controlling a live spider with electrical stimulations, and scientists have found uses for spider silk and the spider's appendages. The spider body itself has not yet been explored as a source of biotic materials.

The lab might be the first to use dead spiders as a raw material for robotic parts. It didn't require a lot of work. The spider's prosoma has internal valves that allow it to control each leg on its own. The legs work in unison once the spider is dead. Yap et al. planned to turn the spider into a gripping device.

All they had to do was put a needle into the prosoma of a dead spider and glue it to the spider's body. They put a small amount of superglue on the needle shaft to let the surface energy be minimized. An air-tight seal was created when the glue cured after gravity pulled the droplets down the shaft. The process took a long time.