Many people fondly remember playing with toys known as Shrinky Dinks
® -- sheets of polystyrene plastic with shapes that kids can color, cut out and heat in an oven, where they shrink into thicker pieces of plastic. Now, researchers have repurposed shrink films for an unexpected use: making strong, durable grippers that could someday encapsulate materials or be incorporated into soft robotics. They report their results in
ACS Applied Polymer Materials.
