--- title: Powered by muscle cells, a paper-thin robot swims... description: MIT engineers built a paper-thin, muscle-powered swimming robot made from a gel film covered with a single layer of light-responsive muscle cells. Shining... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/powered-by-muscle-cells-a-paper-thin-robot-swims-through-watery-maze-jiylmlum6 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Powered by muscle cells, a paper-thin robot swims through watery maze | daily.dev og:description: MIT engineers built a paper-thin, muscle-powered swimming robot made from a gel film covered with a single layer of light-responsive muscle cells. Shining... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/powered-by-muscle-cells-a-paper-thin-robot-swims-through-watery-maze-jiylmlum6 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/JIYLmLUm6.png og:image:alt: Powered by muscle cells, a paper-thin robot swims through watery maze og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Powered by muscle cells, a paper-thin robot swims through watery maze **[Robohub](https://daily.dev/sources/robohub)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary MIT engineers built a paper-thin, muscle-powered swimming robot made from a gel film covered with a single layer of light-responsive muscle cells. Shining light on one fin or the other causes it to flap, letting researchers steer the bot through a watery maze at about four body lengths per minute. The design builds on a prior iris-inspired muscle disk and required optimizing the gel skeleton's composition, stiffness, and groove shape (gelatin methacrylate with square grooves worked best) to maximize muscle force. The team sees future applications in delicate environmental monitoring tasks unsuited to rigid hardware. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How fast can MIT's muscle-cell-powered swimming robot move? The paper-thin biohybrid swimming robot can travel about four times its own body length per minute at its fastest. That is far slower than Olympic swimmers, who cover up to 65 body lengths per minute, but comparable to the cruising speed of a cow shark. The robot is steered by flashing light on one or both of its two muscle-covered fins to control direction and speed. _Those tracking biohybrid and soft robotics progress can follow new research breakdowns on daily.dev._ ### What material works best as a gel skeleton for growing muscle cells on a biohybrid robot? Gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) outperformed fibrin as a skeleton for muscle cells in a thin swimming robot. Researchers tuned GelMA's stiffness, composition, and groove geometry, finding that stiffer gels with square-bottomed grooves (rather than curved ones) produced better cell alignment and more force. A half-millimeter-thin film gave enough support for a single layer of muscle cells without them peeling away during contraction. _Engineers comparing biomaterials for tissue-powered devices can track these findings via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Developing active and flexible microrobots](https://daily.dev/posts/developing-active-and-flexible-microrobots-rowct27qv) · Robohub · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A new type of electrically driven artificial muscle fiber](https://daily.dev/posts/a-new-type-of-electrically-driven-artificial-muscle-fiber-9platcxrk) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Underwater Robot Mimics Fish With New Fin Design](https://daily.dev/posts/underwater-robot-mimics-fish-with-new-fin-design-hxf7bkwgc) · IEEE Spectrum · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [It’s a bird, it’s a plane … it’s a robo-puffin?](https://daily.dev/posts/it-s-a-bird-it-s-a-plane-it-s-a-robo-puffin--glro4pno0) · MIT Technology Review · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#mit](https://daily.dev/tags/mit) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/powered-by-muscle-cells-a-paper-thin-robot-swims-through-watery-maze-jiylmlum6) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Powered by muscle cells, a paper-thin robot swims through watery maze","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/powered-by-muscle-cells-a-paper-thin-robot-swims-through-watery-maze-jiylmlum6","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/powered-by-muscle-cells-a-paper-thin-robot-swims-through-watery-maze-jiylmlum6"},"datePublished":"2026-10-19T08:21:19.881Z","dateModified":"2026-10-19T08:21:45.110Z","description":"MIT engineers built a paper-thin, muscle-powered swimming robot made from a gel film covered with a single layer of light-responsive muscle cells. 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That is far slower than Olympic swimmers, who cover up to 65 body lengths per minute, but comparable to the cruising speed of a cow shark. The robot is steered by flashing light on one or both of its two muscle-covered fins to control direction and speed. Those tracking biohybrid and soft robotics progress can follow new research breakdowns on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What material works best as a gel skeleton for growing muscle cells on a biohybrid robot?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) outperformed fibrin as a skeleton for muscle cells in a thin swimming robot. Researchers tuned GelMA's stiffness, composition, and groove geometry, finding that stiffer gels with square-bottomed grooves (rather than curved ones) produced better cell alignment and more force. A half-millimeter-thin film gave enough support for a single layer of muscle cells without them peeling away during contraction. Engineers comparing biomaterials for tissue-powered devices can track these findings via daily.dev."}}]} ```