Magnetic shape-shifting surface can move stuff without grasping it

When you want to move an object from one place to another, you usually grab it with your hands or a robotic arm. But what if you want to move something you cannot touch without damaging or disrupting it, like a droplet of liquid? A solution proposed by a team of scientists at the North Carolina State University is a metamaterial that can change shape in response to magnetic fields.

This material had to be easily deformable to change shape, yet at the same time stiff enough to bear loads. “That seemed contradictory—how do you make something that is stiff and deformable at once?” says Jie Yin, a mechanical metamaterials researcher at NC State. His team did it with ferromagnetic elastomers, kirigami cuts, balloons, and magnets.

Refreshable Braille display

“There is not much research on using magnets to manipulate non-magnetic objects. It is very, very hard,” says Yinding Chi ...