Quiet Zone Click - Short Edition

In fact, we've been thinking about them for a lot longer

than we've had the ability to build them.

But one of the biggest barriers to robots working alongside us

in the real world is, well, their lack of ability to cope

They can do all kinds of things that robots find really hard.

They can balance without thinking about it, they can walk

without burning up loads of energy, they can react to pain

Now, scientists have given this name.

And they're getting interested in building it into bots, too.

To find out more, we sent in our very own humanoid.

She is one part Scissor Sister, one part robo-fanatic,

So we've gone and added a bona fide pop star to the Click crew.

Having already documented the greatest robots of all time,

we sent her to Italy to find out how machines may soon be pulling moves

The world is full of extraordinary creatures with highly specialised

abilities that allow them to navigate and thrive

And the genius of nature is exactly where scientists are looking to take

inspiration for designing the next generation of robots.

I have come to Scuola Sant'Anna in Italy where researchers

and engineers at the soft robotics lab have been studying the octopus.

A highly intelligent and adaptable creature with complex motor skills,

a unique method of locomotion, and an aptitude for solving

The octopus's highly sensitive and agile tentacles have evolved

to move in intricate and sophisticated ways.

Yet most of the intelligence lies within the arms themselves,

It's this sort of intelligence soft robotics are emulating.

Engineering robots with motor function built into its limbs,

and without the heavy parts or computer processing that

traditional mechanical robotics rely on.

Sometimes if you design the soft body well, in the smart way,

even with just one movement, I'm pulling the wires,

it's just one motor that can do that, you would say a nice grasping.

And the materials are such that they can adapt

I think that soft robotics can make you imagine new scenarios for robots

that can deform, can elongate, like the octopus can deform and pass

And another advantage of building robots inspired by nature

is that their interactions with humans could become

The team here have created this shower head, in effect a giant

octopus arm, to assist people with mobility issues

A very nice field of application is the biomedical field.

Because there one of the big challenges is the interaction

with the patient, with the person to assist.

So you have a soft robot, of course, a lot of problems are solved,

because safety is more intrinsically in the robot.

It can bend in any direction and is made entirely by soft

materials, and while its movements are complex, the limbs contain no

artificial intelligence in the traditional sense.

All the movement is achieved, like the octopus, by its physical

design, by the special material that it's made from,

and their ability to expand and contract, only by changing air

And the team is looking to take advantage of this natural

This is made from a 3D printed mould.

So you get a lot of tiny, tiny, very intricate detail.

And just like the larger version, uses pneumatic force

Now, what are the applications of this tiny structure?

Hopefully your innards don't look like this.

But it is not the accuracy of human anatomy we are interested in,

but this tiny octopus arm's ability to move around.

Keyhole surgeries are a lot safer than open surgeries.

Performed by creating multiple small incisions instead of one large one.

So, tell me about the advantages of soft robotics in microscopic

The idea is to be able to move inside the human body,

pass around the organs, in a very flexible way.

But when the surgical side is reached, of course the surgeon

And these can be enabled by activating these different

The entire system undergoes a sort of freezing.

So it becomes harder, and that it is able

And that is the next phase of this project.

To provide surgeons with not only a highly flexible camera,

but with a range of flexible surgical instruments that

will increase the surgeon's precision and range of motion

and decrease both trauma to the body and time of recovery

So all hail the mighty octopus and robotics

And with an entire world of remarkable animals

with exceptional abilities, there's no telling just where robot

will take its next inspiration, and where that inspiration

Every autumn for the last 11 years, Nottingham plays host to a video

games event like none other, the GameCity Festival.

Most games events are pretty loud and a little bit flash.

They are about selling people something.

Most of the new games that are on show here are from much

smaller developers, and the whole event has an indie vibe to it.

A lot of the action takes place at the National Videogame Arcade.

Here members of the public can get their hands on games

old and new as well as attending seminars or joining

in with interactive experiences like Alistair Aitcheson's

One of the biggest developers here are Sumo Digital.

They use this event as an opportunity to test audience

like unusual adventure puzzler Snake Pass.

The games industry is very similar to the film industry,

There's a big blockbuster part of it which makes the sequels

and they generate a lot of money, but there's also the arthouse,

So there are small independent developers making more independent

They are making statements about society, actions,

behaviours, feelings and thoughts, and telling stories

The National Videogames Arcade is the centre of this festival.

But there are events spread out all over the city,

in different bars and galleries, showing off a whole host

If you really, really want to get to grips with what's

going on at GameCity, you've got to get out and about.

For most of the indie devs here, GameCity is the first time these

titles have been played by the public.

I am sorry, the connection seems to be failing.

I think I can spot a slight Stanley Kubrick influence in here.

A space-based zero gravity murder mystery.

This particular game took six weeks to make and was completed just hours

The chance of critical hardware failure is at 0.05%.

So how important are events like this one for you to show your

gamesto people and get their immediate feedback?

The amount of progress that we've made just in the last two days,

making it go from almost entirely non-functional to playable

And I don't think we would have been able to do that if it was just

myself and my programmer playing it in our rooms.

You always think that you've got everything figured until someone

Another example of some of the very different sorts of games on show

here is the reality bending work of digital fiction

Sometimes I sit cross-legged beside her clusters of markings.

There are lots of games that I think you could say are probably not

And the festival is very much embracing that.

All The Delicate Duplicates is very much an interactive reading

experience, but it's built very much with a 3D engine,

a game engine in it, in order to make it an immersive experience.

And to open it up to gaming audiences.

And to be part of that is driving the conversation forward

and is showing us so much more what games could potentially be.

Games as art, games as head scratching murder mystery,

and games as crowd pleasing interactive installations.

The GameCity Festival continues to challenge what we think

That's it for the short version of Click. Next Saturday is

international disabilities day and next week's programme is full of

technology designed to help people with disabilities, from 3D printed

prosthetics to self driving cars. It is going to be great. In the

meantime you can watch the full-length version of this

programme on iPlayer, or follow us on Twitter throughout the week. And

for watching and see you soon.