Hard robots are typically awkward and clunky.

Ones built like humans with two legs, for example, like to fall down — a lot.

But gleaming mechanoids aren't the only kind of robots. Engineers are also crafting a new generation of highly capable and very flexible machines, called soft robots.

The best of these squishy creations will compete at the RoboSoft Grand Challenge in Italy at the end of April, which we first heard about from Popular Science.

A soft tentacle reaching out to help you might sound unsettling, but one day such a device just might save your life. Here's what soft robots are all about.