12. Soft robotics¶

For this week I worked on 2 projects for soft robotics.

Inspiration

this exploration is based on the Soft robotics toolkit

and the amazing work developed by Monserrat Ciges. Check her documentation!

Do not forget to check the Class notes from 2019

Soft robotics: 1rst project¶

Materials:

Heat adhesive vinyl and baking paper

Software:

Rhino, Inventor, Silhouette, Arduino IDE

Work flow

1. Test the material

2. Create/ use a pattern

3. Cut the pattern (use digital productions techniques)

4. Make a sandwich: Vinyl/Baking paper (pattern) /Vinyl

5. Iron your sandwich

6. Create a wee program: Arduino / an air pump / a relay

7. Make a video

We started by testing the material: heat adhesive vinyl. We used a heat gun and a small piece of metal to isolate a small area. Note. Although the metal piece is heat conductive, The heat sealed first the part that was not covered due to the thickness of the metal piece.

“Todo por hacer” is a personal project I am working for a year. I saw the pattern of the typography quite similar to some rectangular references I found in the research process. Therefore I decided use this logo and see how it would work as an inflatable.

I used inventor:

/created a 3d part

/inserted an image

/ scale it

/ Draw a vector over the image reference

/Exported as DWG

/ Opened in Rhino

/ Exported as DXF

Note 1: I could have used the vectors from my logo with Inkscape but if you do not have the vector file, you can use this documentation to repeat the process with any other images

Note 2: I would advise to work directly on Rhino as you can not export to DFX from Inventor Parts.

Getting a pattern was very hard and I become obsessed on getting it done with the vinyl cutter. After al least 11 tries, I got a final result

I used a Silhouette Cameo Vinyl cutter

/ Download the software for you OS

/ Import all files - Select your DXF file

/ I used the following settings for the machine: Force 9 and Speed 5

I carefully placed the baking paper pattern between 2 heat adhesive vinyl layers

used an Iron to seal everything and then peel the protective layer

David Arias helped us with the Relay program.

Here is a video of the working air pump

Use the three backticks to separate code.

   int solenoidPin = 4;    

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  pinMode(Relay, OUTPUT);           //Sets the pin as an output
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:  
  digitalWrite(solenoidPin, HIGH);    
  delay(3000);                      
  digitalWrite(solenoidPin, LOW);     
  delay(3000);                      
  }

Video

Soft Robotics: 2nd project¶

Materials:

PLA filament, Siliconne, acrylic, UHU glue

Software:

Rhino, Inventor, Cura, Arduino IDE

Work flow

1. Create a 3d Mold

2. Produce de molds

3. Cast with Silicone

4. join the parts

5. Create a wee program: Arduino / an air pump / a relay

7. Make a video

I used Inventor to model the "top" mold. Then I exported it as a STL file and open it with Cura

To print this file I used a generic 3d printes which is based on the Prusa i3 Model.

Some important settings I used: To print PLA i heated the nozzle to 200 celsius degrees, Enable retraction, used a 20% infill, printed a skirt around the first layer and a 0.2 layer height

The "bottom” part was designed in Rhino and laser cut the mold with the following settings: power 40 and speed 30 and

I glued the acrylic parts of the bottom mold and set up a working space for the silicone casting

As we are using Silicone 0045 we will not need a release agent nor a vacuum pump.

This silicon has a ver low density.

It is very easy to use. To polimerize the components you have to mix similar parts from component A and B.

You have to steer the mixture until you get a homogenous mixture. Have patience, ye have 40 minutes until the polymerization begins

poor the mixture in the molds: top and bottom molds.

cast/cast/cast We casted all our molds at once #team ;) <3

The casted parts. Now I have to glue them.