
© Surya Nurzaman / ETH Zürich
The principle is clever: because the robot uses rods of different thicknesses - in principle, differently sensitive sensing instruments - and can therefore adapt to different objects individually, it can measure the elasticity of a sponge just as accurately as that of an aluminum block. The robot therefore does not have the problem of conventional measuring instruments - that precise measurements and a large measuring range cannot be realized at the same time.