Day: December 3, 2011

Another recent technological development that means engineering has caught up with my visions from high school: the soft robot which comes from George M. Whitesides’ lab at Harvard.

UPDATE: Reading their paper and watching the video, their lab

• printed a master mold in ABS using a 3D printer
• then cast in “EcoFlex” (from Smooth-On). A vacuum chamber is used to pull bubbles out of the EcoFlex before it is poured into the mold.
• The non-expanding backing is a different material.

links:

• paper in PNAS (supplements)
• fabrication video
• From 2010, Harvard student Carina Fish fabricates a tentacle from the EcoFlex, shows operation of a tentacle, operation of a “Hand” with knuckles… video embedding disabled!
• IEEE Spectrum video
• paper about “pneunets” – “Soft Robotics for Chemists”
• Pneumatic Artificial Muscles: actuators for robotics and automation about “McKibben-type actuators

However, after reading up on new techniques with 3D printing, I bet one could get similar results printing directly in the silicone goo! I know some have tried printing in caulking, for example with the Frostruder. Note caulking would probably be too stiff for this application… but maybe could be used as a flexible tube, or the less-flexible side? In a two-goo printer maybe?

See also:

• New Soft Robots Use Electropermanent (EP) Magnet Valves and Hydrogen Peroxide “Pneumatic Battery”
• IRobot Unveils Compliant “Jamming” End Effector (Robot Hand)
• DARPA “chembot” (DARPA page)
• jumping hoop and sphere robots from Japan
• Springer: “Review of manufacturing processes for soft biomimetic robots” in International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing Volume 10, Number 3, 171-181