iRobot shape-shifting ChemBot is back, and it's bad (video)
Engadget — ... As you know, when iRobot isn't hard at work developing some adorable automated vacuum cleaners, it has a quite lucrative sideline in DARPA-funded research projects. On that front, it looks like we finally have some results to report back on that ChemBot ...

Shape-shifing Robot Revealed, No Comment From Skynet
Fast Company - Technology — iRobot's new, blob-like robot prototype is able to roll around and squeeze itself through tiny holes. Gird your loins and tell your kids you love them: The era of the shape-shifting robot is upon us. Yesterday, iRobot--the company better known for making the Roomba and the Army's bomb-diffusing robots--revealed its prototype for a shape-shifting, blob-like machine. It's intended to squeeze through tiny openings, whereupon it will eat your heart and deliver the Apocalypse. The "Chembot," whose research is being funded by DARPA, is basically an outer skin, composed of several silicon sacks, which turn rigid or liquidlike, depending on ...

Morphing robot demonstrated at IROS
Hack a Day — ... A morphing robot was demonstrated at the IROS conference this week. This orb has no rigid structure but uses some type of “inflation” system for locomotion. This robot concept is offered up by the iRobot company as part of a DARPA initiative they’re working on. The “inflation” is really a substance in the skin that can be converted from a liquid-like state to a solid-like one. They call this “The Jamming Concept” and give a layman’s explanation in the video we’ve embedded after the break. ...

Soft mobile morphing robots
Boing Boing — ... known as a chemical robot, or chembot, at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems yesterday. It's "the first demonstration of a completely soft, mobile robot using jamming as an enabling technology," they write in a paper presented at the conference.  The concept of "jamming skin enabled locomotion" is explained quite nicely in the video. The polymer used for the bot's stretchy skin is off-the-shelf silicone two-part rubber. iRobot's Shape-Shifting Blob 'Bot Takes Its First Steps

Shapeshifting Robot Peeps from Under the Door
Wired: Gadget Lab — Remember B.O.B, the shape-shifting blob from Monsters vs. Aliens? B.O.B may soon have a real-life counterpart. Robotics company iRobot has developed a soft robot that can roll around and change its shape so it can move through small spaces, such as holes and under the doors, as easily as it can on flat ground. The robot called chembot or chemical robot was shown last week at a conference on intelligent robots and systems. iRobot is no stranger to creating practical yet interesting automatons. iRobot has sold more than 5 million robotic vacuum cleaners and mops, known as the Roomba and the Scooba. The company ...