  We report on the capillary-induced snapping of elastic beams. We show that a
millimeter-sized water drop gently deposited on a thin buckled polymer strip
may trigger an elastocapillary snap-through instability. We investigate
experimentally and theoretically the statics and dynamics of this phenomenon
and we further demonstrate that snapping can act against gravity, or be induced
by soap bubbles on centimeter-sized thin metal strips. We argue that this
phenomenon is suitable to miniaturization and design a condensation-induced
spin-off version of the experiment involving an hydrophilic strip placed in a
steam flow.
