It's a game a lot of us played as children—and maybe even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it would ...

The gripper holds the workpiece securely in a pincer-like grip so that a robot arm handling system can then ... flexible ...

That’s because the tape is both robust and flexible; can be stored in a small container when retracted; and can reach far when extended. After a series of trial-and-error experiments, the engineers ...

They can also retract to bring objects closer to the robot arm the gripper is mounted on. The researchers had already worked with measuring tape as part of a grant from the National Science ...