WASHINGTON: A self-propelled liquid metal motor may bring us a step closer to creating a robot similar to T-1000, the shape-shifting robot that appeared in the Hollywood movie Terminator 2.
Researchers from the Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, developed the first liquid metal robot of the world, which can power itself and also change shapes.
“The soft machine looks rather intelligent and [can] deform itself according to the space it voyages in, just like [the] Terminator does from the science-fiction film,” said Jing Liu at the Tsinghua University. “These unusual behaviors perfectly resemble the living organisms in nature.”
The motor is prepared from galinstan, which is an alloy of gallium. The melting point of gallium is 29.76 degrees Celsius, or 85.57 degrees Fahrenheit. The scientists suggest that galinstan is made of 68.5 percent gallium, 10 percent tin and 21.5 percent indium, and the melting point of the alloy is just 19 degrees Celsius, which means that galinstan is in liquid form when at room temperature.
