8. Soft robotics¶

Research¶

What are Soft Robotics? Soft Robotics is a subset of robotics that aims to create robots out of soft and pliable materials. The robots we generally think of are rigid metal structures, but robots can also move like octopi, shrinking and taking up space depending on the need.

This week was a bit intimidating for me at first because there's so many directions to go, but in the end I had a great time even though I really feel that I only scratched the surface. I focused on inflatables and used manual inflation in my experiments, though want to use automatic inlfation in the future.

Soft Robotics has a lot of applications in assistive technology for assisting disabled people. I found the video below very inspiring.

I personally suffer from back pain and disc injuries and am constantly thinking of ergonomics in order to avoid injury so I love thinking about how to use soft robotics to help solve some of these problems. For example, using inflatables to sense when my posture is bad and the piece can inflate to help provide support and improve my posture.

References & Inspiration¶

Ayse Esin Durmaz¶

I really loved the work of Ayse Esin Durmaz for her final project for Fabricademy in 2018. When I saw this piece moving on the model's body, exposing and covering the chest it reminded me a bit of the theatrical undressing during a Burlesque show and I thought it would be really cool to make a top that can "undress" or "dress" the wearer when its inflated by either growing or shrinking. While that is a more complicated project, this week while working on inflatables vinyls I wanted to focus on pieces that grow / shrink / change shape.

Julija Karas¶

I loved Julija Karas's project from last year's Fabricademy during the Soft Robotics week. I love how she creates a piece using inspiration from origami. I only got to test a little bit with origami type folding this week, but definitely want to keep experimenting

Airbag Helmet by Hövding Sverige¶

This amazing inflatable hekment has a very practical use (safety!) while remaining beautiful when in use and is understated and sleek when not inflated. The ability for the sensors on something like this to sense incoming impact is really amazing and I want to keep researching more into how sensors like this work

Inflate¶


Louis Vuitton Monogram Inflatable Gilet Ready To Wear '21	Craig Green FW '22 London Fashion Week	Ash Tray Nick Crosbie, 1995

Inflate is a design and production team that develops inflatable fashion, furniture and more. I love the way they use inflatables to make beautiful everyday items that are new and interesting while also remaining wearable and practical. This is a goal that's important to me when I create a wearable inflatable piece.

Process and workflow¶

Heat Transfer Vinyl Inflatables¶

Materials + ToolsSteps

* Heat Press or Iron
* Parchment Paper
* Heat Transfer Vinyl
* Scissors
* Air pump or tube

1. Draw desired shape onto parchment paper. (Remember to keep a single piece leading to the outside border (this will be the "path" to the airway"))
2. Cut vinyl, leaving adequate border around parchment paper to ensure it is airtight
3. Peel plastic layer off vinyl
4. Sandwich parchment paper between vinyl piece
5. Place between 2 pieces of parchment paper
6. Heat Press or iron until the vinyl is sealed together
7. Let cool
8. Place tube in the path to the airway and blow!

Ruching¶

My first experiment I wanted to see what happens with a simple design with the airflow on one side of the piece to see how the placement of the air-track can change the shape of the piece once inflated. I really like the effect of this because you can create ruching on one side of the piece.

Leaf¶

My second piece I wanted to mimic some of the folds I saw in the book Techniques de pliage pour les designers , hoping that it would cause the final to pull in on itself and curve similar to the photo. It didn't really have the same effect as with paper, but I really liked the effect. I think this could make a very cool chair back and I think there are a lot of really cool ways to experiment with inflatables in furniture.

Criss-cross¶

This piece didn't do at all what I was hoping for. I wanted to create something like Ayse Esin Durmaz's piece constricting with air flow, she talked about using a criss-cross shape to get this effect, but I found that this piece held its shape pretty well which was the opposite of what I was going for.

Silicone Inflatables¶

Failure: Soft Gripper - Cardboard mold¶

For my first soft gripper (attempt) I tried to use the instructions from this Instructable since our 3D printer was being repaired and this doesn't require a 3D printer. I wouldn't recommend this tutorial if you have access to a 3D printer or a laser cutter as its pretty time intensive and messy.

As you can see its a bit of a disaster. The first mold leaked a ton and I had to stuff toilet paper into the holes and I didn't make it thick enough at the top and the soft gripper tore. It was also extremely hard to get out because I had hot glue dried in lots of places it shouldn't have been because I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to seal it. I would try this option again if I had absolutely no other options, but otherwise its not worthwhile, so I gave up and moved on.

Soft Gripper: 3d print¶

For my second soft gripper, I still wanted to follow existing instructions to see how it worked before making my own, so I downloaded this 3D model from Thingiverse. This worked well and I was able to successfully make the silicone gripper.

Result¶

I injected my soft gripper full of water as the syringe didn't work with air. When it inflated with water it was lopsided, some of the legs not filling up all the way. I think I may have used too much silicone when bonding the top and bottom pieces together and plugged some of the airways. There is also a hole on one of the legs causing a leak.

I decided to use turmeric to color the water so I could see whats going on and I noticed 2 of the legs were blocked, so I inflated each of them seperately from each side. One of the legs still didn't inflate, but my soft gripper was able to grip!

Soft Gripper: Flower¶

For my own design of a silicone inflatable I made this line of flowers, I wanted to make something where a design would pop out of a flat object.

Materials + Tools

* Acryllic sheet (5mm)
* Laser Cutter (or can use 3d printer)
* Hot Glue Gun
* Silicone Mix
* Syringe (with needle is best)

Steps¶

First I designed the pieces to be cut in Inkscape, I tried initially to do it in Blender because I'm more comfortable in Blender but it ended up being much more complicated and with the way I built it, it wasn't at all intuitive to export into SVG.

I created:
 2 layers of the flower piece, with a pathway leading out
 4 layers of the wall, 1 piece for the cover and 3 pieces for the main piece so that when the silicone is poured the walls are taller than the air pathway
 2 pieces of the base, 1 for the cover and one for the main piece

Then I laser cut on Acryllic 5mm

I made a mistake on the settings, I originally wanted to do Power: 67, Speed: 8, Execute: 2 times, but somehow I accidentally set it to speed 4 and execute 1 time, so in the end I cut with the following settings:

Power: 67, Speed:4, Execute: 1 time + REPEAT without moving the piece with Power: 67, Speed: 13, Execute: 1 time

Then I hot glue gunned in the following order:
    First the 2 flower pieces together
    Then 1 layer of wall on each of the base pieces
    Set 1 base + wall aside, this will be the cover
    Then glue the flower pieces to the remaining base with the exiting airpathway close to the wall and adequate space on the other side so there is enough silicone to make a solid wall
    Glue the remaining 2 wall pieces
    At the end this ill be:
    Cover: 1 base, 1 wall
    Main Piece: 1 base, 3 walls, 2 flowers

I finished by hot glueing a thin layer over all the seams to seal it

Then I mixed the 2 silicone ingredients (Smooth On Ecoflex), stirred for 3 minutes and poured into the molds and let it sit overnight

Results¶

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Fabrication files¶

File: Flower Mold - Laser Cutter ↩