Origami automaton: We only got 4 minutes to change the world of robotics

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

It starts out laying flat, like a sheet of paper. Then it springs up, almost lifelike, and folds into moveable parts much like origami art. And then it crawls away. This new kind of robot could someday be used in space exploration, to slide into collapse sites to aid search and rescue, or to speed up manufacturing on assembly lines, experts said.