It may not be able to disguise itself as a car, but the flattened robot can build itself and walk away without human intervention

Harvard scientists have built the world's first working Transformer robot, inspired by the ancient Japanese paper-folding art of origami.

The alien robots that feature in the Transformer movies conceal their true nature by taking on the form of cars and trucks. The scientists' robot has yet to reach that level of technical deception and disguises itself – for now, at least – as a robot that has been flattened.

Footage from the researchers' laboratory shows a sheet of paper and plastic mounted with batteries and motors that folds itself into a working machine without human intervention and then scuttles out of shot.

The flat-pack robot uses "shape memory polymers" that contract like muscles when they are heated. The robot takes about four minutes to assemble from scratch and can walk at a speed of around 5cm per second.

"Getting a robot to assemble itself autonomously and actually perform a function has been a milestone we've been chasing for many years," said Rob Wood at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

Built with help from researchers at MIT, the robot could pave the wave for flat-packed machines for use in space or in hazardous environments on Earth where they can be put into confined spaces and left to assemble themselves.

"Imagine a ream of dozens of robotic satellites sandwiched together so that they could be sent up to space and then assemble themselves remotely once they get there. They could take images, collect data and more," said Sam Felton, who helped to make the machine. Details of the robot are revealed in the journal Science.

The team used computer design tools to create the robot from a three-ply sheet. The first sheet is paper, the second a flexible electronic circuit, and the third the shape memory polymer. Hinges that allow the robot's legs to move into position are programmed to fold at specific angles. Each hinge contains tiny circuits that heat up on command to move the robot's limbs. To work out where the folds need to go, the scientists used software called Origamizer.

Around four minutes after assembly, the robot's hinges cool down enough to set hard and the robot's microcontroller sends signals to the limbs to make it walk. Felton said that the equipment to make the 13cm-long robot would cost about $3,000 at commercial rates with each robot costing around $100.

The robot has a built-in timer and starts to fold itself into shape 10 seconds after its batteries have been fitted. "We could easily modify this such that the folding is triggered by an environmental sensor, such as temperature or pressure," Felton said. To fold itself into shape and scurry off consumed the energy stored in an AA battery.

Daniela Rus, who worked on the project at MIT, said the technology could have a major impact on manufacturing processes. "This will rapidly extend the manufacturing capabilities that we have today where configuring an assembly line is done manually and requires a lot of time.

"Our big dream is to really make the fabrication of robots fast and inexpensive," she added.