MAS.863/4.140/6.943
How To Make (almost) Anything
2019
For wildcard week, I chose to do soft robotics. I was interested in the possibility of doing an actuating soft silicone heart that would change beats per minute based on a heart monitor. Ali Shtarbanov gave us an overview of past and current projects that have been done the field, which can be found here.
Instead of working towards the complicated design of a heart, I used an example provided by Ali of a muscle mimetic linear actuator. This soft robot uses vacuum actuated buckling of hollow compartments to create motion. I chose to recreate the simplest one that has linear motion.
Soft robots are made from Silicone Rubber Platinum Cure, so I would need to design and 3D print a mold of my own. I looked online and found some examples of others who had created molds for this device. However, I noticed there was no draft or rounding of the edges of these mold designs, which Ali said could issues with the material. This is a great opportunity for me to contribute a new STL file for others to print a mold with a slight draft. Here is the making of my mold with a 3 degree draft.
Unfortunately I was not able to continue this project for personal reasons that came up with week. I hope to continue this project when I return from IAP. The next stage is to bind a top layer of silicone to the mold and add the FlowIO device to vacuum and release. The end result would be a muscle that can contract and pull an object.