CROSS MY HEART, HOPING TO DIE¶

8. Soft robotics¶

This week we learned the basics of soft robotics by making silicone molds and vinyl patterns to create inflatables.

Research¶

The Octobot¶

Chemically Actuated by Lori Sanders/Harvard University wyss institute for biologically inspired engineering, harvard university full body sot robotics. controlled with microfluidic logic that directs the flow of the logic circuit acts like a circuit board, autonomously directing fuel, which is so cool i would love to learn to circuit fluid like that through textiles on a predetermined route when desired.

Octobot

FURL¶

Soft pneumatic pavillion. Kinetic responsive architecture which can let space interact with users needs and adapt itself to environmental conditions. interactive architecture lab

Furl

Aposema¶

Soft robotic mask that the user wears over half their face and when an emotion is read, from the facial muscle movements, the mask actuates to pulse liquid through the molded channels with colors corresponding to emotion.

Aposema

Corsetto¶

IoT Kinesthetic Garment

Corsetto

Fluid Actutes¶

Fluid Circuit Fluid Actuated

Thermal & Heat Conducting Circuits¶

Thermal Worm

Inspiration¶

These pieces have given me inspiration to my idea of having a garment with a free flowing circuit for healing purposes. I would like to try adding fluid to my inflatable circuits and see if I can automate them to be on a circuit loop that the wearer will be able to control with a switch, either by thermal changes or frequency changes. Alternatively, the garnment could sense the change in hormones or frequency in the body, to be able to know when and where to release the fluid to, to provide the necessary healing for the wearer. I would like to be able to control the temperature and the frequency of the liquid inside the circuit.

weekly assignment

Check out the weekly assignment here or login to your NuEval progress and evaluation page.

get inspired!

Check out and research alumni pages to betetr understand how to document and get inspired

materials comparison - Julija Karas - FabLab Bcn
Artistic intervention - Riley Cox - TextileLab Amsterdam
Zahia Albakri - CPF Makerspace
Viviane Labelle - EchoFab

Add your fav alumni's pages as references

thermal / heating flowing liquid through a channel body temp regulating, nausea bracelet or anti anxiety necklace ended up with sunglasses kamala losing

CROSS MY HEART, HOPING TO DIE¶

Process and workflow¶

Silicone¶

Silicone Gels

Drafting¶

Choose your mold. I chose an X shaped grabber and a heart.

X Gripper Mold Heart Mold

Mixing Silicone¶

Choose your silicone mold mix. I chose Eco Flex 30 for the first one I did for the X gripper.

We ran out of Eco Flex so for the heart mold, I did Dragon Skin.

For either silicone base, you will mix equal parts of each bottle of the silicone together, trying to avoid creating bubbles. For colour, I added mica neon pink.

5050 Mix

Sealing¶

To seal the top layer and bottom layer of the silicone mold, a third layer of silicone is needed. For this, you make another batch of the silicone and add to the edges of the top piece before placing on the bottom layer to set for 4 hours.

Heart Silicone Heart

Results¶

Silicones Silicone Blown Blown Heart

Tools¶

arduino flora board
heat press
dragon skin silicone mix
ecoflex-30 silicone mix
motor

Vinyl¶

I started with a basic circle shaped circuit in the hopes of attempting to flow liquid through it. Once I learnt that was not an option for this week and I over pressed the green vinyl slightly, I decided to restart and trace my sunglasses and make inflatable shades.

Green Glasses Sketch

Heat Press¶

For the green circuit, I heated the press to 130 degrees for 15 seconds and had to do it a few times.

For the glasses I used cricuit vinyl in an iridescent colour which I thought would be super cute until I realized you could see the pencil on the parchment paper and it ruined the vibe for me. Also, I did not press it enough and the heat was not high enough for the vinyl to stick so I used it as a stencil to redo in the black glitter vinyl. I heated the press to 150 degrees at 15 seconds and had to do many times as well.

Temp Time