full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Christoph Keplinger: The artificial muscles that will power robots of the future

Unscramble the Blue Letters

About 10 years ago, when I did my PhD back in Austria, my cegelualos and I rediscovered what is likely one of the very first publications on artificial muscle, published in 1880. "On the shape and volume changes of dielectric bodies caused by electricity," published by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen. Most of you know him as the discoverer of the X-ray. Following his instructions, we used a pair of nedeels. We connected it to a high-voltage source, and we placed it near a tepasarrnnt piece of rubber that was pescrehrtted onto a plastic frmae. When we switched on the voltage, the rubber deformed, and just like our biceps flexes our arm, the ruebbr fexled the plastic frame. It looks like magic. The needles don't even touch the rubber.

Open Cloze

About 10 years ago, when I did my PhD back in Austria, my __________ and I rediscovered what is likely one of the very first publications on artificial muscle, published in 1880. "On the shape and volume changes of dielectric bodies caused by electricity," published by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen. Most of you know him as the discoverer of the X-ray. Following his instructions, we used a pair of _______. We connected it to a high-voltage source, and we placed it near a ___________ piece of rubber that was ____________ onto a plastic _____. When we switched on the voltage, the rubber deformed, and just like our biceps flexes our arm, the ______ ______ the plastic frame. It looks like magic. The needles don't even touch the rubber.

Solution

  1. transparent
  2. frame
  3. needles
  4. colleagues
  5. rubber
  6. prestretched
  7. flexed

Original Text

About 10 years ago, when I did my PhD back in Austria, my colleagues and I rediscovered what is likely one of the very first publications on artificial muscle, published in 1880. "On the shape and volume changes of dielectric bodies caused by electricity," published by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen. Most of you know him as the discoverer of the X-ray. Following his instructions, we used a pair of needles. We connected it to a high-voltage source, and we placed it near a transparent piece of rubber that was prestretched onto a plastic frame. When we switched on the voltage, the rubber deformed, and just like our biceps flexes our arm, the rubber flexed the plastic frame. It looks like magic. The needles don't even touch the rubber.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
artificial muscles 5
biological muscle 4
hasel artificial 4
traditional rigid 3
soft robotics 3
build robots 2
rigid electric 2
electric motors 2
key idea 2
astonishing capabilities 2
build soft 2
plastic frame 2
maxwell stress 2
ziploc bags 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
hasel artificial muscles 4
traditional rigid electric 2
rigid electric motors 2

ngrams of length 4

collocation frequency
traditional rigid electric motors 2

Important Words

  1. arm
  2. artificial
  3. austria
  4. biceps
  5. bodies
  6. caused
  7. colleagues
  8. connected
  9. deformed
  10. dielectric
  11. discoverer
  12. electricity
  13. flexed
  14. flexes
  15. frame
  16. german
  17. instructions
  18. magic
  19. muscle
  20. needles
  21. pair
  22. phd
  23. physicist
  24. piece
  25. plastic
  26. prestretched
  27. publications
  28. published
  29. rediscovered
  30. rubber
  31. röntgen
  32. shape
  33. source
  34. switched
  35. touch
  36. transparent
  37. voltage
  38. volume
  39. wilhelm
  40. years