| Abstract Scope |
The advancement of technology has a profound and far-reaching impact on our society, now penetrating all areas of our life. From cradle to grave, we are supported by and depend on a wide range of electronic and robotic appliances. These advances however come at the price of negatively impacting our ecosystem, with growing demands on energy, contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. This talk introduces materials and methods including tough yet biodegradable biogels for soft systems that facilitate a broad range of applications, from transient wearable electronics to metabolizable soft robots. These embodiments are reversibly stretchable, are able to heal and are resistant to dehydration. Our systems are designed for operation in ambient conditions without fatigue, but fully degrade after use through biological triggers. Pushing the boundaries further, fast actuation in soft robotics systems, from exploiting mechanical instabilities to leveraging magnetic interactions on the millimeter scale are introduced. |