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Comment by petermcneeley | Hacker News Reader

Not a robot. However, definitely potential for a micro touchless manipulator .

"The scientists use external magnetic fields to exert torque on magnetic particles embedded inside the soft elastomer body of the robot to change the robot's body shape and steer it around."

https://phys.org/news/2018-01-nature-inspired-soft-millirobo...

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I came here to say it wasn't a robot, but you beat me to the punch. I wonder how small they could have made it if it were 100% self-contained.

You could argue its the appendage of a robot.

If this is not a robot, then what is a robot?

Well, I think the argument is that you're looking at a tiny piece of a larger equipment, which contains the power source and needs to manipulate this smaller device using magnetic fields. So, probably the entire set of equipment would be the robot.

While still very cool, I think the way it's presented here implies that the little rubber part is autonomous in terms of power, muscles / actuation, sensing and local planning capability, which is just not the case.

I think you'd have a hard time convincing people that https://www.istockphoto.com/gb/photo/industrial-robot-arm-is... wasn't a robot, but the same argument applies.

That's actually a really complicated question because 'robot' is a poorly defined category. You run into similar problems trying to figure out a definition for "what is life?" that includes everything that we think is obviously alive (like worker bees and frozen-but-revivable organisms) but doesn't also include things that we think are obviously not alive (like fire).

Kind of a robot avatar then.

It's a robot. Even better, it's wirelessly powered and wirelessly controlled.

Look at my crumpled paper robot! It goes wherever I direct it with puffs of air!

Depends on if you are controlling it manually or automatically. If you could program the paper to move, I would have no problem you calling it a robot.

So you'd be OK with calling a hammer "a robot" if it's being held by a robot arm (or even by a human who you're paying to follow your written instructions)?

The Strandbeast is a robot then? Or is a way to show environment dependent behaviour part of the equation?

No. Despite all the hype those have received, they're mechanical tumbleweeds.

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