I-Corps: Soft Robotic Toolkit for Students and Researchers

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of entry-level, open-ended, soft robotics kits with accompanying curricular materials. The goal of the proposed technology is to enable students and researchers to test and prototype soft robots with an easy-to-use platform. The proposed open-ended kit will include portable and compact control hardware alongside materials and instructions for building soft sensors and actuators.

This information will enable high-school students, undergraduate design teams, and academic and industrial researchers to create their own soft robots, which will enable both education and research applications of soft robotics by students, researchers, and hobbyist-makers. The proposed technology may be a gateway that can further motivate students to learn about soft robots, engineering, science, and mathematics.

This I-Corps project is based on the development of entry-level soft robotic kits aimed at middle and high school students that will include materials, building guides, and curriculums to create soft finger-like grippers using tendon and pneumatic actuation methods. The proposed technology platform includes a catalog of design and fabrication rules for soft robots, guidelines for simulating fluid-structure interaction with finite element modeling, demonstration and validation via hardware, documentation of research results, engineering student education, and an open-source platform for sharing the research with the broader educational and research communities.

The kits consist of 3D computer aided design (CAD) models, simulation files, and fabrication instructions that may be adapted for other applications. Combining soft robotic technology with applications involving human interaction and the use of social and people-centric applications is expected to attract a more diverse population to the study of STEM (science, technology, mathematics, and engineering) subjects.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.