Author: amckenzi@andrew.cmu.edu

Objectives from the past week Create a new jellyfish that uses the hydraulic pump Wire and test it in the fish tank Summary of week progress We modified the existing jellyfish design to take input from the hydraulic pumps rather than a hand pump/syringe. Each of the three pumps controls a tentacle. Since the mold
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Design Joints Upper Arm Half Lower Arm Half Wire Retaining Disk Mold Results

Design Full Assembly Wire Retainer Joints Silicone Arm Volume: 5176.03 mm^3 Estimated Mass (EcoFlex 00-30): 5.4g Solidworks Files zip folder: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1utghJZBrgKTksT-dKjwnOcxXw6yIsabk/view?usp=sharing STLs zip file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ur0FPme_Rb3QgO5giWpFPWsS3l0zE7w1/view?usp=sharing Results unfortunately the small segments were lost in the solvent bath, I didn’t have a working prototype. Additionally, the hole of the wire retainer piece was too small and was
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Design I This will hopefully be a radial tentacle thing Part Bottom Mold Top Mold note: these are sldprt files because WordPress didn’t allow stl upload referenced files Design II Results

My project goal is to create an aquatic “ecosystem” with simple soft creatures which interact with each other in some passive way. Since multiple soft robots will need to be fabricated, the actuation methods for the individual robot will be simplified. Inspiration is taken from aquatic invertebrates in nature whose main resource for propulsion is
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Project Idea My project idea is an aquarium exhibit with small soft robotic fish or other creatures which can interact with each other in some way. The actuation methods for each robot will be simple for feasibility. Possible creatures include: fish with soft tails which can actuate to swim, or jellyfish with soft robotic tentacles.
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Initial Research For my informal research, I started with an Instagram account I follow which highlights the works of various student and professional designers. https://www.instagram.com/design_burger/?hl=en However, this page mostly focused on product design, so I went to the accounts that design_burger was following to find some other sources for research. I then found the account
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After googling for “soft moving sculpture,” I found an exhibit of a large icebag which inflates, deflates, and rotates in a very human-like manner. https://pulitzerarts.org/feature/claes-oldenburg-ice-bag-scale-b-1971/ I also found a kinetic sculpture which uses rigid parts, but gives the illusion of soft movement. I continued searching for soft kinetic sculptures from these two sites, but had
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Conference Paper: Theoretical Modeling and Experimental Analysis of a Pressure-Operated Soft Robotic Snake Ming Luo, Mahdi Agheli, and Cagdas D. Onal. Soft Robotics.Jun 2014.136-146. http://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2013.0011 This paper presents a solution to a novel problem problem for soft robotics: the theoretical modeling of motion, which is much more difficult compared to rigid body robotics. A soft
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Source Paper: Theoretical Modeling and Experimental Analysis of a Pressure-Operated Soft Robotic Snake M. Luo, M. Agheli, and C. D. Onal, “Theoretical Modeling and Experimental Analysis of a Pressure-Operated Soft Robotic Snake,” Soft Robotics, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 136–146, Jun. 2014, doi: 10.1089/soro.2013.0011. This paper was found in the Survey Paper references. It describes
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