Balloon filled with ground coffee makes ideal robotic gripper

 Graduate student John Amend, left, and associate professor Hod Lipson with the universal robotic gripper. Watch the gripper in action. Robert Barker/University Photography

The human hand is an amazing machine that can pick up, move and place objects easily, but for a robot, this "gripping" mechanism is a vexing challenge. Opting for simple elegance, researchers from Cornell, the University of Chicago and iRobot Corp. have created a versatile gripper using everyday ground coffee and a latex party balloon, bypassing traditional designs based on the human hand and fingers.