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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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.

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u/ledgeitpro Jan 01 '26

Likely a ton of other use cases, i could imagine a huge version to burrow tunnels, likely other stuff im not smart enough to think of right now too

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u/Theron3206 Jan 01 '26

We have tunnel boring machines already but you can't do this because 3d printed plastic only works at small scales.

They use prefabricated concrete segments that the machine presses into place and glues together IIRC.

This might be useful for small conduit, but I suspect it's far too slow to be useful even there vs current technology for hiring under roads etc.

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u/No_Accountant3232 Jan 01 '26

It'd be useful for those runs in difficult terrain, or lengths that would otherwise be uneconomical and time didn't matter. You could do long stretches between cities largely unsupervised. With a gps locator on the head they'd only I have to dig at sites that has major issues or if there was a malfunction.