ETH Zurich

The new “stingraybot” from a team at ETH Zurich (the Federal Institute of Technology of Switzerland) offers enormous promise for surgery, medical care, wildlife biology, robotics, and more, thanks to muscular membranes of microbubbles.

If you live in the Swiss municipality of Regensdorf, you may soon be getting packages delivered by a robot. The area is the location of a field test that was just launched by Swiss Post, grocery delivery company Migros Online, and robotics firm RIVR.

We've seen robot dogs run up hills with luggage, and help fight fire. Now, researchers in Switzerland are putting these mechanical mutts through their paces on the badminton court, teaching them to play about as well as a seven-year-old human.

Likened by its creators to an "ornate layered cake," the ambitious Tor Alva is the world's tallest 3D-printed building. The remarkable white tower took around 900 hours to print and rises to a height of almost 100 feet.

Ground-going delivery robots are already streamlining operations in various industries, but they typically still have to be loaded and unloaded by humans. That's where the LEVA bot comes in, as it can autonomously lift and drop off cargo boxes.

Researchers have developed a mind-blowing tool to not only create a digital twin of your childhood toys and other precious items, but also make them function like the real thing in mixed reality. It's the future of preserving the past.

Although it is possible to recycle Plexiglass, it's a complex and inefficient process, so it generally just isn't done. A simple new technique, however, is claimed to break the plastic down into all of its building blocks for near-complete recycling.

A reusable formwork design for molding concrete into vaulted floors using sophisticated structural geometry uses 60% less concrete and 90% less steel compared to traditional methods. It's also inexpensive and doesn't require special skills.

"It's not the heat, it's the humidity." That adage applies indoors as well as out, which is where an experimental new material comes in. It absorbs humidity within rooms, reducing the need to run power-hungry ventilation systems.

When disaster strikes, drones and robots can be sent into danger zones to scout for survivors. The RoBoa from a student team at ETH Zurich is designed to snake its way through debris that would stop other solutions in their tracks.

Steering a wheelchair can be a strenuous, inefficient process, in that you have to brake with one rear wheel while pushing harder on the other. A clever new chair addresses that problem in a brilliant fashion, by using a moveable backrest to steer.

Vibration-absorbing, sound-damping materials such as sheets of rubber and expanded foam tend to be thick, bulky and soft. A new material is a big exception to that tendency, however, as it absorbs vibrations while staying stiff and thin.