gesture detection

We first found the thresholds for the four directions (left, right, forward, back) through trial and error and created conditions in the main loop to check for changes in the x, y, and z values that crossed these thresholds. We took inspiration for the algorithm from this paper: https://www.irjmets.com/uploadedfiles/paper/volume3/issue_2_february_2021/6052/1628083249.pdf

Then, we took at the axes of movement for three gestures: normal wave (left to right), cat wave (up down), and a palm flip. Based on the direction of movement across a time window, we were able to create loops in the main sequence to detect these movements.

Overall, this week we made good progress. We were able to 3D print our mold and cast our part for the final bracelet. We were also able to create a program that detects 3 types of gestures.

Casted Bracelets

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19sY36DcLptIkVzm0aVcRVbvsjIRpSGyS/view?usp=sharing

(our video testing our prototypes)

We casted a bunch of prototypes and we are trying to put together our final bracelet. We tested them all today and we are running into some issues with the tubes keep popping off, but we think we got some finalized versions that should work once we tie it together in a bracelet!

Here is us testing the whole bracelet mechanism together with all the gestures!

Final test prototype to see if it will work to silicon two bracelet parts together:

New objectives for the upcoming week

• Putting everything together: bracelet construction and making box with tube connection and making sure everything is seamless for show and documentation

need to buy

• idk maybe string if we want nicer string?

End of Week Report

We finally got our molds 3D printed so we have casted the silicon into our molds. We still need to test the silicon pieces with an air pump. We have started the circuit for connecting the air pumps and Arduino, so once we know that is working it will be easy to connect the accelerometer. Lastly we have thought about how to connect the bracelets together and be put on the wrist. We are thinking some nice looking string for the final design, but we need to test that with our need silicon prototypes.

New objectives for the upcoming week

• cast and bind the new molds
• decide if we need to 3D print any other molds
• send final 3D prints
• finalize design for gestures to detect
• figure out accelerometer code

need to buy

• idk maybe string if we want nicer string?

End of Week Report

This week has been mostly testing and fixing our CAD models and trying to get them printed. We realized that our molds needed some slight changes so that they would print properly, it mostly had to do with changing the ports and tubing to fit correctly. We did a lot of testing with our silicon molds and how it is going on the wrist, mostly seeing how the bending affects the airflow. We are trying to figure out how it will exactly go on the wrist, we tested velcro and thought about how string or silicon would be incorporated. We also tested how the heart rate monitor would go on the wrist and how much pressure it needs. It was very informative and helped us start imagining exactly how we will attach it to the wrist. We think velcro is a very viable option.

New objectives for the upcoming week

• start to figure out final design
• silicon cast our 3D prints
• finalize how we are attaching bracelets

To buy: nothing

new mold 1 – full bracelet prototype

This is a mold for a full bracelet with the ability to be tied together or clasped? If you fill this whole mold up it should make one full bracelet. Also this has the thinnest tube we have done so far with a .5mm hole size.

new mold 2 – 2 tube system

We also made a mold that’s gonna test how it would actuate if we had two air pumps, so this caused us to make a much different mold with 2 tubes running along the sides and inputting to every-other cylinder. This is our last actuation experiment before refining what we have already tested.

Last weeks prototyped glued and tubed

New objectives for the upcoming week

• test new heart rate monitors if they are available
• get molds printed and casted (if skylab allows us)
• decide what actuation style we have liked so far and go forward with that. Figure if it needs refining. Definitely should start CADing another mold before this week ends

To buy: nothing

• Phasing/ sequencing
• Using 2 pumps for one bracelet
• Using modularity to make a full bracelet
• against skin actuation

Beginning of the week plans

We want to print 2 different molds this week to test the concepts above. This is a rough first plan before attempting anything.

Things we need to figure out in the future

• How will it communicate heart rate 
• Where are the sensors gonna go, heart rate monitor 
• feedback and feel?
• connecting pumps and where/ how to place the electronics and pump on the body

End of Week Report

For this week we got two molds CADed to test out two different variations of actuation. In one mold we experimented with the inner tube being much narrower and in the other we made the inner tube taper into a smaller diameter. We are hoping to see a phasing out of these changes. One of the prints failed which we found out on Friday, so we re-sent it to the printer but we didn’t get to fill that mold sadly. We did start a 3rd mold to continue progress!

We attached some photos of the CAD for the mold below:

New objectives for the upcoming week

• print a 3rd mold and test a new actuation method
• make a full bracelet prototype

To buy: We think we need the other heart rate monitor because the one we got is pretty fickle

Artistic Intent: The intent is to slow individuals of bustling New York to stop and pay attention to their environment and specifically the flower instillation. It’s interactive so people can also play and experiment with the movement of the flowers and experience its “choreography.”

New Intent with Soft Tech: Since this installation is inspired so much by nature and has such natural movements, I think it would be really cool to make a similar sculpture but mimic a different part of nature. I think instead the sculpture would be on the ground and not hanging, or maybe in a water tank on a pedestal. Then instead of flowers you would have ambiguous blobs or coral that would “breath” or expand based off if you slow down to look, or if you interact with the sculpture. It would be synchronized just like the flower sculpture. So, you would need soft technologies to actuate this inflating and make it look natural. Plus, the expanding would need to react to based off the sensors that are tracking the individuals passing by.

citations: https://www.deeplocal.com/google-flowers

Tech Paper Citations:

K. M. Digumarti, A. T. Conn, and J. Rossiter. Euglenoid-Inspired Giant Shape Change for Highly Deformable Soft Robots. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2(4):2302–2307, October 2017. doi:10.1109/LRA.2017.2726113.

This project came out of the Tangible Media Group at MIT. They designed 3D printable hair and created a program that can easily design and print the hair without using additional CAD. In the videos, they showed many applications that they designed for the hair material. They demonstrated that you can use this technology for creatures, paintbrushes, mechanical adhesion, actuators through vibration, and sensing. There are many possible applications that could be used for future soft robotics because this a way to add actuators, sensors, and adhesion points without using the materials usually needed for these applications.

Random additional stuff related to soft robotics:

https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/autoinflatables

https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/pneui

https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/optielastic

https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/sticky-actuator

https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/unimorph

https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/exoskin

https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/aeromorph

https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/aspire

Soft Electrohydraulic Actuators for Origami Inspired Shape-Changing Interfaces

Purnendu, Eric Acome, Christoph Keplinger, Mark D Gross, Carson Bruns, and Daniel Leithinger. 2021. Soft Electrohydraulic Actuators for Origami Inspired Shape-Changing Interfaces. In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 377, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451590

1. Do you have any conflict of interest in reviewing this paper? A “conflict of interest” is defined as follows:
   1. Ph.D. thesis advisor or adviseePostdoctoral advisor or adviseeCollaborators or co-authors for the past 48 monthsAny other individual or institution with which the investigator has financial ties
   Yes/no. If yes, please disqualify yourself instead of proceeding. No
2. Expertise. Provide your expertise in the topic area of this paper.
   • 4 – Expert3 – Knowledgeable2 – Passing Knowledge1 – No Knowledge

1. Summary. Please summarize what you believe are the paper’s main contributions to the field of soft robotics.Please write a short paragraph. 

This paper talks about electrohydraulic actuators and shows their application to HCI to bring a new medium to user-centered design practices. They go through all the characteristics and pros/cons of these actuators, and how to make them which makes it easier to design and makes the application more outsider friendly. Then the paper then talks about many applications, thus showing the importance of this research for shape-changing interfaces.

1. Strengths and Weaknesses. What are the main strengths and weaknesses of this work? Does the paper have strengths in originality and novelty?Please write a short paragraph. 

I think this paper seems pretty novel. It sounds like there is not a lot of exploration into new types of actuation in the realm of HCI and design applications. I think the main strength of this article was the emphasis on making it accessible for application reasons. The article even lays out exactly how the actuator is built. The paper also did well with not too much jargon of technical info, and when it was brought it up it was throughly explained. The weakness is I think it would be good to hear more about possible applications in HCI. I think that part was more breezed over compared to related works and building. This is think is especially important since this is a big emphasis of the paper.

1. Soundness. Are the ideas, algorithms, results or studies technologically/methodologically sound?Please write a short paragraph arguing for the strengths and weaknesses of the work. 

The technical parts seemed thorough and had good reports on numbers like the voltage, watts, and amounts of materials. It was very doable to follow along as a novice in this field. This paper makes it so that anyone with a reasonable understanding of basic physics can follow along.

1. Related Work. Does the paper adequately describe related and prior work?Please write a sentence or short paragraph. 

I think the paper does a pretty decent of talk about related wok since the mention how they looked into electroactive polymers, pneumatic actuation, and electrohydraulic actuators. However, I would’ve like to have heard more about the application of the other actuation methods in HCI currently. This is because the main concern of this paper was the application of this actuation to design practice, specifically HCI. Therefore, I think it would’ve been beneficial to hear more of the related works related to the HCI design area in this field of knowledge.

1. Presentation. Is the paper well organized, well written and clearly presented?Please write a sentence or short paragraph. 

I think the paper was very clear and clearly made the effort for it to be readable and scannable. Each section was broken up into digestible amounts. I am not sure if the related works should’ve been the bulk of the paper. Also, there doesn’t need to be a two-sentence intro under just related works, I felt that was unnecessary blocking. Otherwise, everything was labeled in a clear and concise way making it easy to read and also look back at to reference.

1. Suggestions. Do you have suggestions for improving this paper?Please write several paragraphs detailing specific points of the paper which merit reconsideration. Be sure to address the text, figures and tables, mathematics, and grammar and spelling. 

As I said earlier, more work needs to be done so that the paper follows the abstract better. I feel like the abstract promises a lot more than is given. More explanation of the applications and origami. I feel like the origami was very much breezed over when related works were thorough. I think the abstract is interesting and is what makes to paper novel, thus adding more is applications would add a lot to this paper.

1. Comments to Committee (Hidden from authors). Does the paper have enough originality and importance to merit publication? Is the paper relevant to the field? These comments will NOT be sent to the authors:Please write one or more paragraphs as needed to justify your review judgement. 

yes and yes. I think making actuators more accessible to designers and makers is not always done in fields like robotics. Thus, with the revisions and add-ons described. I think this paper could contribute a lot. At its current state, it is a little bit more of a review and more about the making and fabrication, which is less novel to the field to my understanding. Overall, the paper is very relevant to soft robotics since it talks about actuators in soft materials, and it too could be very relevant to HCI since it talks about morphing interfaces for communication purposes.

1. Overall Rating. Provide your overall rating of the paper (5 is best)
   • 5 – Definite accept: I would argue strongly for accepting this paper.
   • 4 – Probably accept: I would argue for accepting this paper.
   • 3 – Borderline: Overall I would not argue for accepting this paper.
   • 2 – Probably reject: I would argue for rejecting this paper.
   • 1 – Definite reject: I would argue strongly for rejecting this paper.

Sun YC, Effati M, Naguib HE, Nejat G. SoftSAR: The New Softer Side of Socially Assistive Robots-Soft Robotics with Social Human-Robot Interaction Skills. Sensors (Basel). 2022 Dec 30;23(1):432. doi: 10.3390/s23010432.

Root Paper:

Laschi, Cecilia, Barbara Mazzolai, and Matteo Cianchetti. “Soft robotics: Technologies and systems pushing the boundaries of robot abilities.” Science robotics 1.1 (2016): eaah3690. doi: 10.1126/scirobotics.aah3690

Related work 1:

Jørgensen, J., Bojesen, K.B. & Jochum, E. Is a Soft Robot More “Natural”? Exploring the Perception of Soft Robotics in Human–Robot Interaction. Int J of Soc Robotics 14, 95–113 (2022). https://doi-org.cmu.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s12369-021-00761-1

Related work 2:

Jorgensen, J (Jorgensen, Jonas); Christiansen, MB (Christiansen, Mads Bering). The Sounds of Softness. Designing Sound for Human-Soft Robot Interaction. Front. Robot. AI, 12 October 2021. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2021.674121

I started off by thinking about what topic I wanted to explore. After choosing social soft robotics I went to Web of Science to explore. After deciding on my source paper that was interesting and had a decent amount of references (30-50), I started scrolling through the references. I mainly looked for what had the best ratio of citations and references, because I wanted a reputable and well-sourced root paper, but also needed one with a lot of citations of course. Web of Science also said this root paper was highly cited that was a good sign for me. I think started scrolling through the citations looking for interesting titles that tipped me off. I used command-F too narrow down the search and opened many papers in separate tabs instead of sifting through every article. The words social and human brought me a lot of results. I then read the abstracts to narrow down the good ones that were in the realm of humanizing soft robots or making social robots.

J. -Y. Lee and K. -J. Cho, “Development of magnet connection of modular units for soft robotics,” 2017 14th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI), Jeju, Korea (South), 2017, pp. 65-67, doi: 10.1109/URAI.2017.7992886.

This article looked at how the soft mechanics of animals’ bodies could inspire tissue engineering to produce ways soft materials can make processes more efficient based on worms’, caterpillars’, and octopuses’ movements and hunting.

Sangbae Kim, Cecilia Laschi, Barry Trimmer, Soft robotics: a bioinspired evolution in robotics, Trends in Biotechnology, Volume 31, Issue 5, 2013, Pages 287-294, ISSN 0167-7799, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2013.03.002.

This article looks into making a more robust human sensing using a soft suit that conforms to the body so that the suit doesn’t hinder natural movements and still collects data accurately.

Yiğit Mengüç, Yong-Lae Park, Hao Pei, Daniel Vogt, Patrick M. Aubin, Ethan Winchell, Lowell Fluke, Leia Stirling, Robert J. Wood, and Conor J. Walsh. Wearable soft sensing suit for human gait measurement. The International Journal of Robotics Research, 33(14):1748–1764, December 2014. doi:10.1177/0278364914543793.