Squashable laptop runs calculations relying on the way you squish it

A pc made utilizing blocks of rubber with streaks of a rubber-silver compound performs easy calculations when squished

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

Mushy cube-shaped computer systems can carry out completely different calculations relying on how they’re squished. The units may very well be used for robots that reply to bodily stimuli.

Ryan Harne at Pennsylvania State College and his colleague developed a way for combining rows of blocks of rubber which have strains of a silver-rubber compound operating by means of them. Totally different configurations of the blocks act like completely different circuits, which when mixed and linked to electrical energy make a pc than can carry out specific calculations.

In a single model of the pc, the workforce set it up so as to add collectively two numbers. A consumer would then inform the pc which numbers so as to add by squishing the element blocks to the left or to the appropriate, connecting a few of the silver-rubber strains that didn’t contact earlier than in such a manner as to encode the numbers in binary. The workforce linked a (non-squishable) digital show to the pc to point out the results of the calculation.

The researchers additionally created squishy computer systems that might multiply two numbers or examine them to find out which is larger.

Ryan Hayward on the College of Colorado Boulder says that squishable computer systems wouldn’t beat standard computer systems by being sooner or fixing tougher issues, however they might result in comfortable robots that make choices primarily based on what they contact of their atmosphere, he says.

Sooner or later, Harne imagines a comfortable laptop that’s built-in right into a constructing. It may “determine” to restore the constructing after a crumbling piece of rock applies strain to it.

Harne says that his workforce is engaged on fine-tuning the pc’s “sense of contact” in order that it may possibly take inputs past the binary, for instance by having it encode completely different squishing strengths into completely different values.

Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05004-5