11. Soft robotics#
SOFT ROBOTICS
MOLD DESIGN
The concept behind the design was to create a soft robot that when inflated would grip around your forearm like a bracelet. I went with a sihoulette that resembles a spider with a long shaft in the middle and 8 legs on both sides of the body. I used SolidWorks as my design tool for this assignment. There are 5 difference pieces that need to be designed for this process.Piece #1: The Robot Shape
This peice is the main piece and will dictate the shape of the soft robot. As metioned above this piece will consist of a long middle body with 4 legs on each side of the body. Making this in SolidWorks is straight forward. Using the "Sketch" tool create a series of squares, leaving the middle open.
Piece#2: Robot Shape Outline
This piece similar to the first peice will be the shape of the soft robot but it will only be the outline. When assembling the mold this piece will be glue direcctly ontop of piece #1 and will prevent sipplage when pour the silicone.
Piece #3: Air Pockets
For the soft robot to work properly there has to be air pockets that allow are to travel in and out of. These air pockets are essentially empty spots within the mold. To create this we will glue a "positive" layer that we glue on top of piece #1. The channel flows throughout the middle body and through each leg.
Piece #4: Square
This piece will be used during the second phase of creating the soft robot.
Piece #5: Square Outline
This piece will be used during the second phase of creating the soft robot and prevents silcone from spilling out.
FABRICATION
1. MAKE THE MOLD The first step to making a pneumatic system is creating the positive mold. To make the mold we glued together laser cut acrylic pieces to create the positive and flat molds. Step number one is laser cutting 3 layers of acrylic, firs t layerf is flat, second layer is your design and third layer will be an outline of your first layer. Glue the 3 layers together and now you have the positive. Before proceeding we also made another acrylic mold that consist of a flat and boundary piece of acrylic.
2. ECOFLEX 00-30 ECOFLEX 00-30 is the silicon mixture of choice here. ECOFLEX is flexible, strong and cures pretty quickly.
3. POUR AND CURE With the molds assembled the next step is to pour in the ECOFLEX 00-30 and let it cure. There is a trick to curing the Ecoflex quicker. If you have an oven available to you, set the oven to 145 degrees and let the mold sit there for 10-15 mins.
4. COMBINE PIECES once the pieces are done curing, combine them by pouring and curing more Ecoflex in the gaps.
5. INFLATING
FILES
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Soft Robotics (DXF)
Soft Robotics (Solidworks)