At ICRA 2015 in Seattle yesterday, researchers from MIT demonstrated an untethered miniature origami robot that self-folds, walks, swims, and degrades. The unfolded robot, which is made of a magnet and PVC sandwiched between laser-cut structural layers (polystyrene or paper), weighs just 0.31 g and measures 1.7 cm on a side. Once placed on a heating element, the PVC contracts, and where the structural layers have been cut, it creates folds. In under a minute, the robot is finished, and is ready to go, zipping around at speeds of between 3 and 4 cm/s. A caveat to all of this is that the “motor” of the robot isn't really integrated into the whole self-folding and dissolving thing. The motor comes in two parts: a cubic neodymium permanent magnet that the robot folds itself around, and then a set of four electromagnetic coils underneath the surface that the robot operates on to provide the magnetic fields that drive it [right]