Author: aramsisa@andrew.cmu.edu

Statement of Objectives The objective of this project is to create a soft robotic sculpture that reflects the organic response of plants to external stimuli, specifically touch. The sculpture consists of silicone-based parts in the shape of flowers and venus fly traps, which are pneumatically actuated based on capacitive touch sensing. When the parts are
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This week we focused on mold design for the venus fly trap leaves and electronics. We printed out 2 different molds for the venus fly trap leaves that we will be casting next week. We also cast repeats of the actuators for them for additional testing. Additionally, we weaved and embedded an electrode for the
Continue reading Progress Report 4 – Catherine & Aditti

Last week we focused on the design for the venus fly trap actuator. We tried out a design with ridges running along the sides to allow for greater room for inflation and movement, hoping to achieve more bend with it. Our first cast failed during bonding ,leading to asymmetrical inflation. We then tried recasting another
Continue reading Progress Report 3 – Catherine and Aditti

This week we worked on casting and bonding the template moulds for our flower actuator. We did two different designs and did one iteration of the first design and two iterations of the second design – one coloured and one clear. There are still some leaks in our bonding, which we plan to patch with
Continue reading Progress Report – Catherine & Aditti

Throughout the course of this class, my interests have varied from scaling robots down to microscopic sizes to bio-inspired soft robots to rehabilitative wearables. I wanted to combine some of these ideas and put them in the context of artistic expression – cyborg botany. Continuing from class discussions on plants, I remembered Edwin Tinney Brewster’s
Continue reading Exercise 5: Infusing Art with Technology

http://amorphicrobotworks.org/interactive-birds The Interactive Birds installation by Chico MacMurtrie at Amorphic Robot Works uses Inflatable Robots to create the wing-like structures of birds. What I find cool about this installation is the concept and the underlying theme that influenced the programming, rather than the actual installation itself. The “birds” are made using white fabrics that hang
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Paper: Huang, H., Sakar, M.S., Petruska, A.J., Pané, S., & Nelson, B.J. (2016). Soft micromachines with programmable motility and morphology. Nature Communications, 7. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12263 Referee Form: 1. Do you have any conflict of interest in reviewing this paper? No 2. Expertise. Provide your expertise in the topic area of this paper. 1 – No Knowledge
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Paper 1: Joyee, Erina & Pan, Yayue. (2019). A Fully Three-Dimensional Printed Inchworm-Inspired Soft Robot with Magnetic Actuation. Soft Robotics. 6. https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2018.0082. This paper details a 3D-printed, tetherless, inchworm-inspired soft robot using magnetic actuation for linear locomotion and crawling, with multi-material composition (magnetic particle–polymer composite and flexible polymer) achieving a stride length of 5mm, a
Continue reading Exercise 2: Lateral Literature Search