12. Soft robotics ¶
Week 12.
To breathe: inflate and deflate.
It is a paradox that I had to do this exercise (that is related with air flow), at the worst moment of the pandemic in Uruguay, during the month May 2021. At this time, our country has the first place in terms of infected people and deaths per million inhabitants. Breathing seems like a privilege, not only from a health perspective but also from a point of view associated with freedom.
Confinement suffocates us.
It suffocates the children who cannot go to school, and have to access to their "right to education" through the screens, eliminating the human contact with their peers. It widens the gap between social clasess, between those who can, and those who cannot easily access to technology, or between those, whose parents are able to guide their learning process, and those who aren´t.
It suffocates us, mothers who have to educate, care for, cook, work, study, and have our own spaces, everything by our own, in the same place.It Asphyxiates couples, suffocates relationships. It suffocates economy and, as it also happens with education, it widens the gaps.
Tests¶
Of course that as expected, I could hardly get any materials in Uruguay, so I went directly to experiment with the ones that were available in the market: in this case vinyl and baking paper. I also wanted to try with the "little arm" that Adriana Cabrera showed on her tutorial and I couldn´t get the "long balloon", as the party stores nearby are closed due to pandemic.
It took me a long time to get the right heat temperature, time and pressure in order to avoid the vinyl not sticking completely to the baking paper.
I tried several examples and those are the best ones :P .
Final Idea¶
I wanted to visualize the act of breathing: this was my little "psychomagic altar". I want that this situation passes soon, leaving the least possible consequences in the immediate and long term.
Steps:
The technical process was as follows. The first step consisted of drawing the respiratory system on paper. Then, I traced the alveoli on the baking paper and drew the silhouette of the lungs and the windpipe on the vinyl (one silhouette in gold vinyl and the other in purple vinyl).
I cut out all the parts, and carefully, I presented it on a baking paper sheet, already with the iron plugged in, at a low temperature.
With great caution, I placed another sheet of baking paper on the total of the pieces and I ironed with care trying not to burn any duct or to have a lack of heat in another.
I removed the adhesives that come off with the heat, and then proceeded to insert the rubber tube to pass air through it.