\n<\/p>\n
The 2024 runner-up in the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield, geCKo Materials, returned to the stage at this year\u2019s show to debut new products as it pushes deeper into commercializing its tech.<\/p>\n
Founder Dr. Capella Kerst revealed four new uses of geCKo\u2019s super-strong dry adhesive: a semiconductor wafer handling tool, a robotic gripper for smooth surfaces (like solar panels or glass), a curved robotic \u201cend effector\u201d for more irregular shapes, and an all-purpose gripper for robotic arms.<\/p>\n
The geCKo tech is inspired by the way real-life lizards use their feet to grip surfaces. Kerst positions it like a new form of Velcro, but one that leaves no residue, can quickly attach and detach, and requires no electrical charge or suction. A one-inch tile of the material can hold 16 pounds, and the geCKo dry adhesive can attach as many as 120,000 times \u2014 and can stay attached for seconds, minutes, or years.<\/p>\n
The ability to quickly adapt the dry adhesive to existing manufacturing, picking, and other robotic applications has proven popular. Kerst\u2019s company won over Ford, NASA, and Pacific Gas & Electric as customers before she even competed on last year\u2019s Battlefield stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cHas this year flown by as quickly for anybody else as it has for us?\u201d Kerst said on the TechCrunch Disrupt stage on Wednesday. The geCKo CEO said her company has tripled the size of her team since last year\u2019s show and completed an $8 million fundraise. And geCKo\u2019s dry adhesive was used on six space missions in the last year \u2014 a testament to the material\u2019s ability to work in multiple environments, including a vacuum, according to Kerst.<\/p>\n
Onstage Wednesday, Kerst showed off a Fanuc robotic arm using six geCKo tiles to quickly grab and move objects around, before showing videos of the other commercialized applications.<\/p>\n
In one of those videos, Kerst showed geCKo\u2019s material being used to safely move semiconductor wafers faster than current suction or vacuum tech allows.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur customers at TSMC, Samsung, Intel, and Kawasaki said we have a goal to [move the wafers] at 2Gs of acceleration,\u201d she said. \u201cWe decided to blow them out of the water and do 5.4Gs of acceleration repeatedly, reliably, using geCKo materials.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 2024 runner-up in the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield, geCKo Materials, returned to the stage at this year\u2019s show to debut new products as it pushes deeper into commercializing its tech. Founder Dr. Capella Kerst revealed four new uses of geCKo\u2019s super-strong dry adhesive: a semiconductor wafer handling tool, a robotic gripper for smooth surfaces<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[18289,7619,230,15085,1433,513,572,18290,2127,7629],"class_list":{"0":"post-31384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-2024s","9":"tag-battlefield","10":"tag-disrupt","11":"tag-gecko","12":"tag-materials","13":"tag-products","14":"tag-reveals","15":"tag-runnerup","16":"tag-startup","17":"tag-techcrunch"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}