Having stomach troubles? Try swallowing an origami robot

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – Has your child swallowed a small battery? In the future, a tiny robot made from pig gut could capture it and expel it.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are designing an ingestible robot that could be used to patch wounds or deliver medicine. It could also remove a foreign object, such as the disc-shaped button batteries that can be deadly when children swallow them.

Researchers call their experiment an “origami robot” because it gets folded up into a pill-sized ice cube and then unfolds after it reaches the stomach and the ice melts.

Its flexible body is made of sausage casing. Magnetic forces control its movement, directing it to a precise location.

It’s a long way before it could be tried in a human or animal. For now, researchers have created an artificial stomach to test it.

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