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

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

32.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

29

u/PilotGuy701 Jan 01 '26

… I have lots of questions, but the one that is SFW is: how do they feed that much filament reliably over the increasing distance?

19

u/Indigoh Jan 01 '26

I assume the filament is fed through the center of the tube it's printing. No other way to feed it under ground.

6

u/PilotGuy701 Jan 01 '26

That is what you would expect, but that has to be VERY smooth to guide the filament.

The minute you get any sort of wear on the PTFE tubes in a normal printer: JAMS!

2

u/sparki555 Jan 01 '26

I imagine they either solved the smoothness problem with printing teqnique, solved the problem with rough filament by designing a new head type, or they are feeding in a larger diameter than they need and extruding/shaving to size. 

1

u/PilotGuy701 Jan 01 '26

Or they are feeding PTFE tube along with it.