Sometimes these materials are used to enhance more

Sometimes these materials are used to enhance more conventional robots. One team of
researchers, for example, has developed a different kind of hydrogel that becomes sticky
when exposed to a low-voltage zap of electricity and then stops being sticky when the
electricity is switched off. This putty-like gel can be pasted right onto the feet or wheels of a
robot. When the robot wants to climb a sheer wall or scoot across the ceiling, it can activate
its sticky feet with a few volts. Once it is back on a flat surface again, the robot turns off the
adhesive like a light switch.
Robots that are wholly or partly made of gloop aren’t the future that I was promised in science
fiction. But it’s definitely the future I want. I’m especially keen on the nanometre-scale “soft
robots” that could one day swim through our bodies. Metin Sitti, a director at the Max Planck
Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany, worked with colleagues to prototype these tiny,
synthetic beasts using various stretchy materials, such as simple rubber, and seeding them
with magnetic microparticles. They are assembled into a finished shape by applying magnetic
fields. The results look like flowers or geometric shapes made from Tinkertoy ball and stick
modelling kits. They’re guided through tubes of fluid using magnets, and can even stop and
cling to the sides of a tube.
SubQuestion No : 16
Q.16 Which one of the following statements, if true, would be the most direct extension of
the arguments in the passage?