The team's artificial muscles also demonstrate impressive versatility. The performance of each coil can be varied based on the weight applied to the end of the cord during twist insertion, and, of course, by the total number of twists. A cord forced to coil in a direction opposite its twist-direction will expand when heated, rather than contract. Fibers can be twisted, coiled, pleated, plied and braided into all manner of configurations, some with the aid of a heat gun (what basically amounts to a fancy hair dryer, the heat gun is used to fix the cord into a desired configuration through a process known as "annealing"), and many without. The results are beautiful, and, in theory, limitless: