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.

Inspired by the paper-folding art of origami, engineers have discovered a way to make a single plastic cubed structure transform into more than 1,000 configurations using only three active motors.

The Transformer-Bot consists of cubes connected by rotating hinges. Using actuators, it can take on different shapes and move around. Engineers at North Carolina State University (NC State University) ...