Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Sameh Tawfick is a mechanical engineer and roboticist whose research spans bioinspired robotics, origami-based mechanisms, and advanced actuator materials. He is perhaps best known for pioneering the use of origami folding principles in robotics, demonstrated through his influential work on multi-stable origami crawling robots — work that has garnered over 200 citations and established a compelling framework for building scalable, low-cost, deployable machines from folded sheets. Tawfick draws deeply from biological inspiration, translating the locomotion strategies of earthworms, click beetles, and trap-jaw ants into engineered systems capable of remarkable feats such as legless jumping more than ten times a robot's body length using dynamic buckling cascades. His investigations into twisted and coiled polymer actuators (TCPAs) address a critical frontier in soft robotics — creating artificial muscles that mimic biological tissue while surviving thousands of actuation cycles. More recently, Tawfick has explored miniature jumping robots fabricated through additive manufacturing and tackled fundamental questions about elastic snap-through mechanics. Collectively, his body of work bridges nonlinear mechanics, smart materials, and bioinspired design, making him a distinctive voice in the growing field of insect-scale and soft robotics.