Gellyphant: Scientists make a robot elephant made from jelly

Scientists have found a way to use a specially created gel to make a functioning robot elephant.

It's made from ingredients that are safe to eat, including gelatine which is used in jelly and lots of chewy sweets, citric acid and glycerol.

The robot, named Percy the Gellyphant made by researchers from Austria's Johannes Kepler University, mimics the movements of a real elephant's trunk.

They found the elephant trunk, made from the gel and crochet yarn, was able to bend and straighten more than 330,000 times before drying out or cracking.

They also added sensors to the robot and were able to control it with a pressure sensor, using the elephant's trunk to grab different objects.

The gel is called biogel and is completely biodegradable - but won't break down when it's still in use.

It's been designed to be eaten by bacteria commonly found in waste water, meaning it will only start to break down naturally if it ends up in landfill, but remain stable otherwise.

But in other environments researchers found that the gel didn't dry out or lose any of its properties for more than a year.

"Gelatine stands out for its versatility, ease of manufacturing and low cost compared to other biodegradable elastomers [natural rubbers with elastic properties]," says Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland.

"This work is important because it paves the way for a new generation of wearable sensors and computing devices."

Scientists hope that because the soft, edible robots can mimic real organisms they could be disguised as prey, or food, and used to help give medicine to animals.

They could also be used to make children's toys, because it wouldn't matter if they ate part of the robot by accident!

Before that can happen though researchers need find a way to make the electronics and sensors used in the robot edible too.

What do you think of the Gellyphant? Let us know in the comments below.