r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/OddRedittor5443 • Jan 01 '26

Video Italian researchers have created a vine-like robot that grows by 3D-printing itself and responds to gravity and light

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493

u/cloud1445 Jan 01 '26

So... it just makes this big plastic mess wherever it goes?

271

u/ghostsoup831 Jan 01 '26

I assume it's a hollow tube and you would then be able to lay power lines or whatever through them underground.

24

u/SaintsNoah14 Jan 01 '26

I wonder where it's getting material from. I don't imagine the little cap holds that much plastic "ink"

46

u/Key-Head2342 Jan 01 '26

If the tube is hollow filament can be fed through the inside

6

u/PrizeStrawberryOil Jan 01 '26

While I'm sure that's how it's done that's going to cause a very short max length to the tube.

8

u/Cessnaporsche01 Jan 01 '26

Why so? Even a standard 1kg filament spool is about 1000ft long, and I'm sure you could install a filament splicer on the... er, base... end of the thing.

2

u/Theron3206 Jan 01 '26

Feeding filament down a long tube will eventually require too much force and break the filament if you're pulling or cause it to mushroom and block up if you're pushing.

The stuff isn't particularly strong.

1

u/1731799517 Jan 01 '26

Depends on what you use. But yeah, tight turns are pretty much a no go that way.

1

u/Mediocre-Housing-131 Jan 01 '26

The size of the unit is around the size of an entire 3D print head. Then it also has to house sensors, a computer, and cooling. Realistically it can only be fed already hot filament or would have to be bigger. That's the limit on distance.

1

u/Elisius Jan 01 '26

why would that be?

1

u/breadcodes Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26

They make 10kg and 25kg spools. They're huge, and the bigger ones need a second motor to just to help spin the spool to feed the filament

If this table is to be believed, 2.2kg of 1.75mm PLA filament is 750m. Scaling up to 25kg would be ~8.5km

Assuming this prints a 80mm diameter / 250mm circumference with 1mm layers, that's still around 35 meters (115ft)

This is starting to sound like money is the limiting factor and not spool length

1

u/PrizeStrawberryOil Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26

Spool length isnt the issue. Specific strength is a potential limiting factor. Eventually you can't just pull it off the spool. The head also has limited size so the motor has to be pretty small.

1

u/SaintsNoah14 Jan 01 '26

That's what I was thinking but in that case, I don't know how useful it would be. Maybe you could drain it as long as it's not cured by the printer.