Building Robots That Bend, Fold, and Fit Anywhere: Onur Özcan

This episode features Zehra with Onur Özcan, faculty member in Mechanical Engineering at BK University and head of the Miniature Robotics Lab.

Discuss why robotics at small scales is so different from conventional robotics, and how bio-inspired design, flexibility, and power constraints shape what miniature robots can do.We cover the physics of scaling, why insects continue to inspire robotics research, and where small robots may eventually help in rescue, inspection, and medical contexts.

Key topics:

• Miniature robots are not just smaller robots
• Bioinspiration works best when you copy the principle, not the creature
• At small scale, power is the bottleneck that controls everything else
• The real use case is not a single robot, but a swarm of disposable scouts
• Inspection is a stronger near-term future than autonomy
• Softness is not a weakness—it is how robots survive uncertainty