Mr. Griffith is at the forefront of a movement known as soft robotics, which aims to revolutionize the way we think about building things. Researchers at Harvard University have released a tool kit to make loudspeakers and prosthetic hands using soft materials. Last summer’s hit movie “Big Hero 6” featured a squishy-bodied robot inspired by work at Carnegie Mellon University. Biologically inspired designs are also shared freely on the Internet by various user groups. And last year, soft robotics even got its own peer-reviewed journal.

These are typically small-scale and academic endeavors that depend on funding from government and a few interested companies, and many of Mr. Griffith’s projects are a few years away from being offered to the public. Yet by creating a range of companies that are making soft robotics, Mr. Griffith hopes to accelerate an overall change in thinking.

The work contrasts with more mainstream robotics. Amazon’s drones and factory pickers, or the welding robots at Tesla, are decidedly hard and use traditional mechanical engineering approaches. Many of those machines have heavy arms and need objects placed in the same position every time, so they can move fast to the correct location.

Traditional bionic exoskeletons proposed for the military and paraplegics are also heavy. More weight in the robot or exoskeleton means it will take more energy for the parts to move. That translates into either short battery life or an external power source.