450: Swimming Through Nutritious Slurry

Kari Love joined us to talk about soft robotics, robots in religion, and squishiness. Kari co-authored Soft Robotics: A DIY Introduction to Squishy, Stretchy, and Flexible Robots. Her website is karimakes.com. She was previously on Embedded 189: The Squishiness Factor One of the pneumatic drives that we mentioned was a Hackaday Prize Winner: FlowIO. Another was the Soft Robotics Toolkit. However, Kari recommended Amitabh Shrivastava’s Programmable Air (Crowd Supply page for Programmable Air). Some search terms for getting started with soft robotics: “DIY Jamming gripper”,  “Positive pressure gripper”, and “bendy straw robot joints”. (That last one leads you to the delightful video Make a Robotic Hand with Straws.) Polysense conductive dye for making sensors out of found objects. (On Hackaday.) Simulation of Soft Bodies in Real World Applications (for squish and stretch) include SOFA, Abaqus, and DiffPD. Transcript An incomplete list of power systems people have used for generating soft robotic motion: Pneumatic - air and vacuum Hydraulic - using liquid Electrical - using currents Thermal - using temperatures Cable control - using motor control Magnetic - using magnets Chemical - using reactions Photonic - using light Biological - using living cells Hybrid systems - multiple sources in tandem   An incomplete list of things people have used to make soft robots: Fabric Silicone or other rubbers Flexible plastic Plastic films Metallic films Paper Carbon fiber Silly Putty Shape-changing alloys Electroactive polymers Liquid metals Gelatin or Gluten Cell tissue