The authors with their robot. From left to right: Alberto Comoretto, Harmannus A.H. Schomaker, Johannes T.B. Overvelde. A research team from AMOLF in Amsterdam created a soft robot that walks, hops, ...

Humans make walking look easy, but that’s only because walking is a very efficient process in which our tendons and muscles work in conjunction to store and release 40% more energy than we exert.

Although soft-bodied robots themselves can be fairly simple, low-cost devices, they typically require complex onboard electronics to control their locomotion. Such is not the case with a new bot, ...