In what may be the birth of cheap, easy-to-make robots, researchers have created complex machines that transform themselves from little more than a sheet of paper and plastic into walking automatons.

This robot paper plane designer (really a robot arm fashioned with silicone grippers) can run through this whole process without human feedback. A video of the robot at work.

The robots incorporated with paper electrodes and liquid crystal elastomer bilayer achieve asymmetric bending.