Self-assembling origami robot is world's first Transformer

Harvard scientists have built the world's first working Transformer robot, inspired by the ancient Japanese paper folding art origami.

The alien robots that feature in the Transformer movies conceal their true nature by taking on the form of cars and trucks. The scientists' robot has yet to reach that level of technical deception and disguises itself – for now, at least – as a robot that has been flattened.

Footage from the researchers' laboratory shows a sheet of paper and plastic mounted with batteries and motors that folds itself into a working machine without human intervention and then scuttles out of shot.

The flat-pack robot uses "shape memory polymers" that contract like muscles when they are heated. The robot takes about four minutes to assemble from scratch and can walk at a speed of around 5cm per second.