Elastic-instability–enabled locomotion

Significance Soft structures and materials are easily susceptible to mechanical instabilities, which can be harnessed for function, such as controlled locomotion. Here, we show how a reversible conical buckling instability of a pneumatically actuated sheet leads to an amphibious morph-bot that can crawl on land or swim in water. Our approach enables the design of novel shape-changing robots and other bioinspired machines at multiple scales using simple constituent materials and power sources.