Creative Soft Robotics

Why: Taking one look at this project, one might immediately think “more plastic utensils?” but the reason we decided to focus on utensils isn’t because of the materiality of polystyrene rather for the unique forms it can morph into under heat. We find potential in the application of low-touch, heat-activated morphing in the medical field
Continue reading 4/21 Dorcas Sophie Ray

This week, Yanwen rewired her sensor grid and put it on a different surface(cutting board to desk surface) and the reading becomes much clearer. Both the single and multi-touch detections became much more reliable, so we think that we have a sensor grid fabrication method that we can reliably test on now. We tried adding
Continue reading 4/19 Catherine & Yanwen Updates

Weekend Update: We continue creating a system of folds for our final set of utensils New Research: Precedent of organizing/naming curved origami from “British Origami Society” Iterating on the spoon design: Ray used some thick tin foil to test the fold design. Thick tin foil bends more similarly to the shink paper compared to paper.
Continue reading 4/19 Dorcas Sophie Ray

Internal Wax Components This week we acquired most of the materials we will need for the remainder of the project, including three new types to wax to experiment with– beeswax, paraffin wax, machinable wax. We also redesigned the mold for the wax components and are going to try to print and cast those molds this
Continue reading 4/19 Sebastian and Elena

Four Week Plan Week Goals 4/12 1. Acquiring wax 4/16 1. Have a working bistable connection 4/23 1. SLA printing connector piece2. Getting a wax mold to work 4/30 1. Tuning the molds to get the desired motion 5/7 1. Tying up loose ends2. Final Documentation ABS Lego parts: Trial One Our printed Lego parts
Continue reading 4/12 Sebastian and Elena

We rewired the 3×3 sensor grid we had last week and the signals become much cleaner, so I think the noisy signal from last week is caused by error in wirings. We were able to figure out a somewhat efficient way to create the sensor grid and fabricated a 6×6 sensor grid(which still took 2h+)
Continue reading 4/12 Catherine & Yanwen Update

Dorcas Lin, Ray Pai, Sophie Paul Goals for next 3 weeks: 4/12 to 4/18 — Create design system using 3-4 folds by end of this week (current have hinge fold and hybrid hard/soft setting nailed down, figuring out curves/curls) 4/18 to 5/2 — Based on design system, create a set of utensils. Refine cuts and
Continue reading 4/19 Origami Project Update

This past week we have been established two different work flows: Elena has been working on the connection of the silicone piece to the Legos/tubes, while Sebastian has been continuing our work on the silicone parts. The Lego/tube/silicone connector progress: We have modeled three parts (to accommodate for the FDM printers we will be using
Continue reading 4/7 Elena & Sebastian Updates

We decided to use the open source multi-touch kit and purchased the parts needed for the kit. We also brainstormed on how to integrate the technology into our fabric book in a specific scenario. We decided to extend on the Jellycat If I were a Puppy Board Book and integrate digital tactile inputs, digital outputs(sound,
Continue reading Mar 29th, Catherine&Yanwen Update