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Soft Robotics

For this assignment we were given the choice between 3 different tasks:

I decided to focus on the gripper because I had some experience with robotics but did not have enough time for focusing on creating a more complex system.

First attempt

Instead of downloading the files directly from the web, I designed my own soft gripper using Fusion 360. In order to increase the strength of the grip, my device was formed by six arms rather than just four. Here's a picture of the design. This is not what the gripper would look like, rather, this is a negative of how it would look like. I saved the finished body as an STL and sent it to the print environment.

I used a “MakerBot replicator +” since these are the 3D printers available at my university. The parameters were the following:

Because of the size of the design (about 20 cm long), it would take 10 hours for it to print, so I had to change it.

Second Attempt

I changed my design to a 6 cm wide-4-armed-gripper. I then used the same printing parameters and printed my mold in only 51 minutes. These are the files

I then proceeded to cast the material, thus generating the actual soft gripper. I used silicone and a catalyzer to accelerate the curing process. I used 70 grams of silicone and an amount of catalyzer equal to 6% of the silicone's weight. After 30 minutes it was completely cured.