8. Soft robotics

The day after the Week 08's global class, I flied to León, where my remote instructor, Nuria, is based. I met Nuria during this summer's Fab Conference in Mexico when she joined my programming embroidery workshop. But who would have thought! Back then, I could never have imagined that I’d end up taking Fabricademy, that she’d become my remote instructor, and that I’d actually come to León now.

Among the staff in León, Adrian was especially helpful to me with my unfinished assignments so far, as well as this week’s soft robotics assignment and a trial of programming embroidery. Every afternoon, the kids come and work on projects. Two elementary school students were working on the same e-textile assignment.

This week, another experience: I visited IAAC’s Green Fab Lab. It's located in the mountains in a neighboring town about a 30-minute drive from Barcelona, in a building that used to be a monastery. Drive up winding mountain roads, then finally go down an unpaved path to reach it.

The coordinater, Esin, showed me around. Currently, there are about 20 students from around the world, 16 of whom live and study on-site. They were in the middle of a class doing farm work. There are also a few buildings that were final projects made by graduates who studied architecture, and they are being put to use.

There’s a greenhouse made of glass and wood, with various experiments happening everywhere. Inside, there’s a solar power generation system, a water supply system from tanks, and coconut fiber on the soil. One student even reused powder from a large CNC machine to make potted plants. It reminded me of biomaterials.

Research

In class, we learned about biomimetics, where the structures of real plants and animals serve as functions....and robots learn structures that allow them to sense with sensors, control mechanisms, and move.

"Biomimetics" refers to the field of study and technology that involves mimicking the structures and functions of living organisms to develop technologies and products. This approach seeks to create efficient and sustainable technologies by taking inspiration from mechanisms and designs found in nature.

To better understand soft robotics, I referred to the homework of Marija, a graduate introduced by Nuria. In particular, the work on the Vinyl Inflatables assignment, which demonstrated how the ratio of height to length of the diamond shape affects the degree of bending at full inflation, was very helpful.

Adriana Cablera Adriana Cablera

References & Inspiration

From Marija's work on vinyl inflatables, I thought that the degree of bending is related to two factors:

① the airflow needs to reach the ends completely, and

② the flow should progress from narrower to wider sections.

So, I drew some idea sketches for that mechanism.

The shapes I considered include a ；

-Thin, small rectangle

-Tall rectangle

-Trapezoid with a shorter top edge

-Trapezoid with a longer top edge.

I actually made it and tried it out.

Vinyl Inflatable

Process and workflow

Step

1. Cut the cooking sheet (vary the shapes of the parts that create airflow).

2. Use scissors to cut out shapes from the cooking sheet.

3. Cut the vinyl sheet slightly larger than the cooking sheet.

4. Stack the vinyl sheet, cooking sheet, and another vinyl sheet in that order. At this time, ensure that any part of the cooking sheet where you’ll insert a straw or blow air sticks out slightly longer than the vinyl in that section.

5. Cover with an ironing cloth and iron slowly for about 17 seconds.

6. Once ironing is complete and it has cooled slightly, peel off the vinyl sheets from both sides.

7. Insert a straw and blow air into it. Observe how it bends.

   • Vinyl sheet
   • Cooking sheet

Overview & research outcomes

small rectangulo	Rectangulo	Daikei1	Daikei2

It’s the result I recorded in the draft. A trapezoidal shape with a longer top edge created a pathway that allows the airflow to spread, causing it to bend a little bit when air is blown into it

When I tried making it in the diamond shape like Marija did, it created a very beautiful curve.

This time, I’ll try several variations by changing the number of diamonds and the overall length.

1 diamond	2 diamond	2 diamondlong	3 diamond

When the overall length is increased and air reaches the ends, it causes it to bend. "Based on these experiments, I decided to create something with a design element—shaped like tea leaves.

Tea－leaf vinyl inflatable

Nuria taught me how to design using Rhino. I prepared two types of vein designs, cut them with a laser onto baking paper, and made them.

When I added air, it spread through the vein parts, causing them to bend.

Silicona Inflatable

Next, I started working with silicone.

Process and workflow-Preparation

a. First, read the instructions carefully.

b. Wear safety equipments-Gloves, goggles, apron.　It’s better not to use vinyl gloves, as they can affect the curing time.

c. Ensure good ventilation.

d. Release agent.

e. Measure the materials accurately.

f. When measuring the materials, confirm whether it's by weight or volume.

Process and workflow-Flow to make a mold

g. Used Marija's design to create a mold by laser-cutting acrylic.".

h. Prepare silicone A and B in a 1:1 ratio. Also, prepare a container for mixing.

i. Combine A and B and start mixing. From this point, have 90 seconds..

j. Then, immediately pour it into the mold. The curing time is 2 minutes, so work quickly after mixing A and B.

k. Place it in the oven at 100°C for 30 minutes.

- Silicona Eco-flex Rapid
-

Trouble shooting

The tip of the mold isn’t properly sealed, causing air to leak.

For another mold design, I tried making the covering part slightly larger. Then, I used the adhesive nozzle as an air inlet, connected it to a tube, and pumped in air. The air reached the end, causing it to inflate and curl up! I thought it would move if I repeated this, but it was too thin and ended up bursting. It tore, causing air to leak.

"From this mold, I decided to create a leaf design mold, similar to the vinyl, and try using silicone.

Could it be that the type of silicone is different? I’ll check when I return to Barcelona.

Results

Video

From Vimeo

Sound Waves from George Gally (Radarboy) on Vimeo.

weekly assignment

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

about your images..delete the tip!!

1. Remember to credit/reference all your images to their authors. Open source helps us create change faster together, but we all deserve recognition for what we make, design, think, develop.

2. remember to resize and optimize all your images. You will run out of space and the more data, the more servers, the more cooling systems and energy wasted :) make a choice at every image :)

This image is optimised in size with resolution 72 and passed through tinypng for final optimisation. Remove tips when you don't need them anymore!

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

Fabrication files

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1. File: xxx ↩

2. File: xxx ↩