Final Project: Spirobs

My motivation is to think about objects that are camouflaged but have a very interesting and surprising functional form. I originally thought about making a legged robot, but I decided I wanted to explore a different mechanical form rather than rigid legs which I do have prior knowledge in. I have always been curious about alternatives, such as tendon based robots. This lead me to explore the following videos / research.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxBeUQay8YM&t=38s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2yYclPaEV0

I really likes the elegant design of the SpiRobs paper, https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.09861

Potential extensions I want to explore is how to add more DOF to it by having small solenoids on some of the segments that can clamp down on the wire. This video describes this idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9G-J1wP5O4&t=136s

Following spiral development I will first recreate SpiRobs, and if time persists, try to develop a locking mechanism to extend the DoF of SpiRobs.

I made some early attempts at understanding how to build a flexible core - this is 3d printed via PLA and it was too stiff and brittle. I ordered TPU filament as a result.