Dielectric elastomers are a technology that could have been discovered decades earlier. The notion of opposite charges attracting and like charges repelling has been known since the earliest days of electricity (indeed, the effect on dielectric materials is known as Maxwell stress referring to the work by James Maxwell on the foundations of the electromagnetic theory). The materials needed to show actuation, such as polymer films and carbon black, have been available since at least the 1940s if not earlier. In fact, Bar-Cohen and Breazeal [1]note that experiments done with electric charges on natural rubber by W. Roentgen date back to 1880 while M. Sacerdote measured the strain response of dielectrics to applied electric fields in 1899.