This week I attempted the full robot fabrication again. I was successful in creating the divided molds parts and then glueing them together –

After that, I tried casting the silicone and bonding the top and bottom. Unfortunately, non of the parts in the model I cast inflates properly – it seems like air is slipping out, and that the internal cavities didn’t bond well enough. Additionally, I think the transparent film I used in the bottom part sank too low and disturbed the cavities, so next time I will try casting 3/4 of the bottom part, and then wait until it is almost cured before adding the transparent film and casting another layer of silicone.

Jason

This week’s iteration focused on developing a design that would allow soft and rigid parts to connect. Rather than creating a soft center unit, I opted for creating a central module that will allow for flexibility in the number of appendages for future iterations. This week’s iteration only had one attachment port but more can be added fairly easily. Unfortunately, a design flaw was revealed once the print was finalized. The locking mechanism for the lid was too small and the hooks did not print on the lid.

The other change consisted of modifying the latest iteration of the appendage to include the locking design. The process was very similar to the previous iterations.

Due to a lack of time management, I was unable to complete the part by Sunday. However, all that is left is to bond the pieces on Monday. Once that is done, this report will be updated with video and photo documentation.

We both made changes to our existing parts molds and then attempted casting, incorporating the fabric.

Results

Jason: For this iteration, I decided to change the chamber geometry. The older designs used larger chambers and thin walls which were challenging to work with during the bonding process. The new chamber design mirrored the Whiteside’s design in an effort to facilitate the bonding process and actuation. Everything else remained unchanged from the previous design. That proved to be a mistake. The 1mm gap left on top of the chambers was too thin and as a result, several chambers ripped. Only half the part was still covered. Additionally, while bonding was successful on the edge, the chambers failed to bond. The video demonstrates the main flaws. The next iteration will increase the height from the chambers to the top surface and have assistance from Inbar during bonding.

Documentation Video – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e03-rDQGTe4O90nTwW7gAXP4qcRyq4GJ/view?usp=sharing

Inbar: before printing the updated mold, I’ve made sure that the number of cavities and the distance between them is the same as in Whitesides’ soft robot – which meant decreasing the number of cavities I had in my part, and as a result also decreasing the overall length of the part itself. Incorporating the fabric into the base of the part seemed to successfully increase the curvature when inflating the part. Bonding was also relatively successful, except for a narrow opening around the tube (inflating was still possible when applying some pressure in that area, as can be seen in the documentation).

Documentation video – https://youtu.be/n9vL3gL_hoE

Deliverables:

The part that was cast using Mold C appeared to be inflating well, but had air leakage in two locations oh its bottom face since the thickness of that part was only 1 mm and the cavities edges were very close to the face. I was successful in repairing these air leakages by casting small amounts of silicone, however, It was accidentally ripped open because I used too much air pressure while inflating it.

I did cast a second part in parallel to repairing that first part – this time, I used modeling clay to raise the bottom mold edges up (approximately 1 mm) – which successfully prevented the bottom face to have air leakages but appear to be slightly too thick since now the part doesn’t inflate towards one direction – as happened with the first casting of mold C. Additionally, there is one location of air leakage around the opening of the tube – as can be seen in the documentation video below. The Ecoflex silicone rubber 00-31 that was used seems to have the correct softness needed.

Changes planned for the next mold version:

• Reduce the part’s leangth and number of cavities.
• Slightly increase the thickness of the bottom part, while maintaining the unequal ratio between the top and bottom parts.
• Attempt to extend the mold to the complete structure of Whitesides’ soft robot.

Documentation: (in the video – inflating the second casted part from mold C)

Changes made:

• Cut-Extrude for tube corrected to the right size.
• Part’s height slightly reduced.
• Air slits along the part slightly changed in locations and enlarged in width. Number of slits slightly reduced.

The main source of reference – https://cargocollective.com/bohanh/Soft-robot-Design-and-Fabrication

Deliverables: mold B was never printed – the learning process of parametric design resulted in my delay in the class assignments and therefore, mold B was submitted right before the directive to scale our molds up – which can be seen in mold C. Another change between mold B and C: in mold C the cavities were reduced in number, and divided into three length groups instead of two length groups

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ijHIED8CNJ9FfdkBbqrIzI4GYghBzDBK?usp=sharing

Deliverables:

Mold A had a few design errors:

• The size of the inlet tube to the part was too small.
• The number of cavities along the part was too large.

Additionally, the bonding of the top and bottom of the silicone part was not successful in one of the edges. I was able to repair it with another try of bonding, but the part still doesn’t inflate even with no apparent air leakage, apparently due to the small tube and the use of relatively harder silicone rubber (Ecoflex 00-45).

Documentation:

Essential movements: The minimum requirement is the ability to move forward in one direction. The ideal requirement is the ability to move forward and change the direction of movement while moving.

Tempo, pace, or speed for each movement: Spees of movement should be relatively slow (although, the speed of movement is less essential, as long as it’s not extremely fast).

Overall size: Ideally, about 50cm x 30cm x 30 cm (LXWXH – in inch: 20x12x12). However, I do understand that as part of the class I can only produce a much smaller model.

Visual design language: Something between a machine and a small animal, skin-like, with the color range of my pet rabbit (white-brown)

Materials, colors, and textures: The robot needs to have the conventional opaque milky white color of silicone rubber, with fur punched into its top surface (the fur color range is white-brown).

Technical Critical Path

The simplest version of the system which can address the creative goals: creating a similar, yet bigger in scale, model of the Whitesides’ soft robot – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrrM-QZ-xDI&t=4s. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Multigait-soft-robot-Shepherd-Ilievski/b217c8d7e5a22dadd14f42b80b86224596882046

An ideal version will include a more controlled motion method, although perhaps the Whitesides’ soft robot can be sufficient as a base model, and once/if I’m successful in recreating it, I can then focus on applying specific aesthetic changes to adjust it to my project.

Proof-of-concept

Productive first step / first experiment:

For the simplest version: Creating a similar model of the Whitesides’ soft robot – in order to establish I can create the simplest version of my idea and observe how the fur punching integrates with the original design.

For the ideal version: Creating a soft robot that is partly based on M. T. Tolley’s soft robot from 2014, or on Dylan Drotman’s soft robot from 2021 (see references). Tolley’s soft robot is ideal because it’s still made out of silicone rubber (unlike Dylan Drotman’s soft robot) but is capable of the controlled direction of movement (Can be seen at Drotman’s documentation video between 00:10-00:19 https://youtu.be/bnT6BBkDYlc). An important feature of both Tolley’s and Drotman’s soft robots: they are untethered, which is not necessary for my idea.

In conclusion, I’m hoping to incorporate a controlled locomotion method into Whitesides’ soft robot.

Original sketch:

References:

M. T. Tolley, R. F. Shepherd, B. Mosadegh, K. C. Galloway, M. Wehner, M. Karpelson, R. J. Wood, G. M. Whitesides, A resilient, untethered soft robot. Soft Robot. 1, 213–223 (2014). https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/soro.2014.0008

Dylan Drotman, Saurabh Jadhav, David Sharp, Christian Chan, and Michael
T. Tolley. Electronics-free pneumatic circuits for controlling
soft-legged robots. Science Robotics, February 2021.
doi:10.1126/scirobotics.aay2627.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.aay2627

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnT6BBkDYlc

 Existing text about the work:

Throughout the video, it is nor clear what is true and what is fiction, and if the rabbit is indeed the subject of this experiment; an experiment which can be seen as equally deranged as castrating a rabbit in the first place. The puzzling imagery and amorphous narrative are submerged in a tragic moment of libidinal loss, and raise questions regarding the liability of art, the probity of cinema and human-animal relations. https://youtu.be/TaQUyW-Ppto

Fabrication and technological aspects:

It is clear to me that the robot should be made (partly or fully) out of silicone rubber – similarly to the “sex doll” – as silicone rubber often signifies skin and has a bodily organic quality to it, as well as a sexual connotation. It also allows for hair/fur punching, which is an important component of the aesthetics I would like to achieve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqwtyqX-jl8

Initially, I was thinking about an Arduino-powered robot, half-hard, and half-soft, that incorporates a motion detection sensor, that then causes the robot to move in the direction of the motion it has detected and sets off an audio player and smell-inducing sensors. However, after I came across the example of the soft robot developed by Harvard’s Whitesides Research Group https://youtu.be/ZrrM-QZ-xDI through the course, my vision of the robot has started to shift. https://gmwgroup.harvard.edu/files/gmwgroup/files/1135.pdf I wonder if it’s possible to create a soft robot that has a similar locomotion method, except there is a way to change the direction of its movement in real-time while moving.

Related art project:

Danger, Squirrel Nutkin! (2009) by Ian Ingram http://www.art.cmu.edu/news/alumni-news/5-questions-for-ian-ingram-mfa-10/

https://vimeo.com/45975282

https://www.artsy.net/artwork/pierre-huyghe-zoodram-4

Huyghe let (or manipulate) a hermit crab make his home inside Brâncuși’s 1910 sculpture, Sleeping Muse, thus creating a poetic living ocean ecosystem in a glass aquarium.

Context/questions/discourse of existing work

The tension between the human and the non-human, the borders between fiction and reality, between make-believe and the real, between life and an imitation of life, Donna Haraway’s concept of the cyborg as a liberating synthesis of human, animal, and machine.

Perhaps – the aquarium as a metaphor for the museum.

“In an ambivalent symbiosis of the human and the animal, the crab and the girl’s face travel through a human reproduction of the sea. They embody the encounter of two species, not dissimilar from clumsy attempts at communication with extraterrestrial life.” – https://fotografmagazine.cz/en/magazine/living-with-humans/profiles/pierra-huyghe/

Alternative resolutions – soft technology

Soft robotics feel relevant in the context of the artist’s exploration of the borders between life and an imitation of life.

Additionally, Pierre Huyghe often utilizes animals in his artworks – an act that inherently involves an ethical question since his animal collaborators obviously can not give consent. Some will even argue he treats animals as objects, and therefore, his related artworks are criticized in the context of animal abuse:

“… The aesthetic distance taken by the artist undermines empathy” – https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/descartes-dick-dog-pierre-huyghe-lacma/

“Huyghe reinforces, instead of challenges, a social construct that systematically privileges some living creatures while harming others.” – https://hyperallergic.com/181315/art-with-a-dose-of-imperialism-pierre-huyghe-at-lacma/

Soft technology can allow for imitation of nature without cruelty. However, will the interesting tension dissolve if the entire installation is an artificial structure? Perhaps a combination of living ecosystems and soft robots – but then the ethical issue remains the same.

Related technical research

Design and structure analysis of multi-legged bionic soft robot J. Xu, B. Liu, K. Li, Y. Feng, H. Zheng and Y. Gao, “Design and structure analysis of multi-legged bionic soft robot,” 2020 International Conference on Advanced Mechatronic Systems (ICAMechS), 2020, pp. 180-185, doi: 10.1109/ICAMechS49982.2020.9310122. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9310122

Main points:

• Most soft robot, inspired by worms, performs peristaltic crawling motion and has disadvantages in climbing over steps. However, the crab crawls sideways and can climb over certain height of a step. When crawling, they raise side near the step, to reach the step with the leg on this side, then the leg on the other side stretches to push the crab over the step. Inspired by the crawling process of crabs, the article present a soft bionic robot that simplifies the 8 legs of crabs into a four-legged structure and can climb over obstacles.

• The robot adopts the structure similar to crabs, and its four legs are raised alternately. The robot has four feet, each leg is divided into two parts: thigh and shin. The thigh can bend upward to lift the leg, and the shin can bend down under the body.

• It is driven by a stay wire mechanism. A steering gear is installed in the middle cavity to control direction and the stay wire is connected to the disk. Thigh consists of spine and a set of hollow elastomer chambers and the shin is a flat plate.

I googled “eflux soft robot” (e-flux is a leading online art publication platform), and one of the first results was this – https://findresearcher.sdu.dk:8443/ws/portalfiles/portal/173378022/PhD_Thesis_Final_Version_Jonas_J_rgensen.pdf

“Constructing Soft Robot Aesthetics:
Art, Sensation, and Materiality in Practice”

PhD thesis, Submitted to the IT University of Copenhagen, May 16 2019 by Jonas Jørgensen

I only skimmed through it, seems super relevant. Was surprised to realize, through this thesis, that Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds (1966) can be thought of as an early soft robotics work –

״Given that most silicone-based soft robotic artworks are actuated with pneumatics, inflatables
within 1960s and 1970s media art can also be considered art historical predecessors of
contemporary soft robotic artworks.” (page 19)

There are a lot of wonderful references and examples of soft robotics in art, architecture, fashion, etc.

According to his website – https://jonasjoergensen.org/critical-making/works/ – he is also an artist, working mainly in collaborations – example of soft robot he created with Mads Bering Christiansen (2020) – https://youtu.be/dQ5FZLPRpLc

2.

Not sure if it’s a soft robot (?), but feels relevant –

Or Ariely | Under My Disgusting Skin, installation (Tel Aviv, 2021)

Installation, includes a kinetic sculpture (Arduino) – a silicon hand that moves according to the audience presence

Text: “Over a decade ago, Ariely underwent gastrointestinal surgery by a state-of-the-art robot. Shortly after his recovery, he discovered that he is the subject of a news item that included documentation from the operating room without his explicit consent, as in a 19th century surgical theater where surgeries were performed before a live audience. The installation addresses the artist’s biographic trauma and the body as an autonomous object; the state of a living body without consciousness and that of disembodied consciousness, both of which belong to one another.”

Images (documentation) – https://www.facebook.com/bezalelMFA/posts/4125769124150779 https://www.instagram.com/p/CPr5b8Lr-rV/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

3.

Also not a soft robot, but maybe relevant – Sun Yuan and Peng Yu: Can’t Help Myself

La Biennale di Venezia, Central Pavilion, Giardini, 2019

Text: “The Chinese artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu participate in the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice with their work “Can’t Help Myself” (2016). For this piece, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu use a Kuka industrial robot, stainless steel and rubber, cellulose ether in colored water, lighting grid with Cognex visual-recognition sensors, and polycarbonate wall with aluminum frame. Info text (Guggenheim): In this work commissioned for the Guggenheim Museum, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu employ an industrial robot, visual-recognition sensors, and software systems to examine our increasingly automated global reality, one in which territories are controlled mechanically and the relationship between people and machines is rapidly changing. Placed behind clear acrylic walls, their robot has one specific duty, to contain a viscous, deep-red liquid within a predetermined area. When the sensors detect that the fluid has strayed too far, the arm frenetically shovels it back into place, leaving smudges on the ground and splashes on the surrounding walls. The idea to use a robot came from the artists’ initial wish to test what could possibly replace an artist’s will in making a work and how could they do so with a machine. They modified a robotic arm, one often seen on production lines such as those in car manufacturing, by installing a custom-designed shovel to its front. Collaborating with two robotics engineers, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu designed a series of thirty-two movements for machine to perform. Their names for these movements, such as “scratch an itch,” “bow and shake,” and “ass shake,” reflect the artists’ intention to animate a machine. Observed from the cage-like acrylic partitions that isolate it in the gallery space, the machine seems to acquire consciousness and metamorphose into a life-form that has been captured and confined in the space. At the same time, for viewers the potentially eerie satisfaction of watching the robot’s continuous action elicits a sense of voyeurism and excitement, as opposed to thrills or suspense. In this case, who is more vulnerable: the human who built the machine or the machine who is controlled by a human? Sun Yuan & Peng Yu are known for using dark humor to address contentious topics, and the robot’s endless, repetitive dance presents an absurd, Sisyphean view of contemporary issues surrounding migration and sovereignty. However, the bloodstain-like marks that accumulate around it evoke the violence that results from surveilling and guarding border zones. Such visceral associations call attention to the consequences of authoritarianism guided by certain political agendas that seek to draw more borders between places and cultures and to the increasing use of technology to monitor our environment. (Xiaoyu Weng)”

Video documentation – https://youtu.be/ZS4Bpr2BgnE

4.

Also found this through e-flux – https://epfl-pavilions.ch/exhibitions/nature-of-robotics

2/2 5. Just remembered – video artist Jon Rafman, known for incorporating esoteric found footage from the internet into his works, referencing ״Utterance robot finally got the same voice as humans״ https://youtu.be/HmSYnOvEueo in his video work “Erysichthon” (2015) https://www.ubu.com/film/rafman_erysichthon.html

Also – Paul McCarthy, “Mechanical Pig“ (2005) -https://youtu.be/VFhQD0Qxv8E

M. T. Tolley et al., “An untethered jumping soft robot,” 2014 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2014, pp. 561-566, doi: 10.1109/IROS.2014.6942615.

The paper describes the development and fabrication of a jumping soft robot, which constitutes a breakthrough since locomoting soft robots typically walk or crawl slowly relative to their rigid counterparts.

Root paper: The challenges ahead for bio-inspired ‘soft’ robotics

R. Pfeifer, M. Lungarella, and F. Iida, “The challenges ahead for bioinspired’soft’robotics,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 55, no. 11, pp. 76-87, 2012.

It has 234 citations, (or 376 citations according to google scholar), and was also cited in:

Hard questions for soft robotics

E. W. Hawkes, C. Majidi, M. T. Tolley, Hard questions for soft robotics. Sci. Robot. 6, eabg6049 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.abg6049

Along the way, I found another paper that I found very interesting – “Aiming and vaulting: Spider inspired leaping for jumping robots”

H. Faraji, R. Tachella and R. L. Hatton, “Aiming and vaulting: Spider inspired leaping for jumping robots,” 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016, pp. 2082-2087, doi: 10.1109/ICRA.2016.7487357.

which cited the paper I started with but not the root paper.