Crawling Soft Robot

This project is a 3D printing project that makes a crawling soft robot. It uses air pressure to move along the floor. I chose this project because I enjoyed designing the soft robotics gripper I worked on earlier this year. When I built and designed this gripper, I thought the science of soft robotics was very intriguing. I find this new science fascinating and how it applies to our world. Their smooth design makes them more flexible and less breakable than other robots. Due to this flexibility, they can move and explore in places that robots have not conquered before and maybe even explore places humans have not explored yet. Walking robots like this are the base model of the first technologies that NASA has experimented with for technology that can be used in space. 

Things I was inspired by:

https://www.instructables.com/Walking-Crawling-Soft-Robot/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLi8QNLALmA

3D Printing Filament (I used 1.75 mm PLA filiment)

3D Printer (can use any 3D printer, but I used a Dremmel)

Two Large Binder Clips (rubber bands could work as well)

Two Part Silicone Mix

Popsicle Sticks

Mixing Trays

Scale (to weigh silicon)

Tin foil (to protect the surface you are working on)

https://www.onshape.com/en/

Using Onshape (or another website) create the mold. This first part of the mold is for the bottom of the soft robot. It is a piece of silicon that will be attached to the body if the robot.

*To make the process easier, I made one arm of the mold then mirrored it along both the x-axis and y-axis.

Using Onshape (or another website) create the mold, then print it using a 3D printer. This second part of the mold is for the body of the soft robot. It represents the air pockets that will make the robot move. When making this part of the mold, I had to do multiple reprints to fix the spacing of the air channels, so that they do not interfere with the third part of the mold. The first photo of the blue mold is one of my prototypes that failed. The second photo of the red mold is the more successfully version.

*To make the process easier, I made one arm of the mold then mirrored it along both the x-axis. Then I added air channels then mirrored along the y-axis.

Using Onshape (or another website) create the mold, then print it using a 3D printer. This third part of the mold is for the body of the soft robot. It shapes the walls of the robot so it will have separate sections expand. It also will hold the silicon. For me this was the hardest of all the molds to create on Onshape and I spent the most time one it. I had multiple reprints, many of which immediately went into the trash. The first photo of the gray mold is of one of these failed attempts closed to end of this challenging process. The second photo of the red mold is the more successful version.

*Again to make the process easier I made one are on Onshape then mirrored it over the x-axis and y-axis.

For this step, I filled both molds with two part silicon mix. For the “body” of the robot, I snapped mold two and three together and after filling the mold with silicon, I put binder clips on it to prevent leaks (rubber bands would also work). For the base, I just filled mold one.

The next step is to take the body and base out of the mold. I was unable to connect the two together to finish the robot due to the amount of time it took me to create the mold for the robot. When taking it out of the mold I had a lot of struggle so I would have changed this by adding non stick spray. I wish I was able to finish the project and make the robot fully walk, but it still was a ton of fun and a lot of hard work.