Soft Robotics - Week 3 (02/07/2025)

Inflatables

This week was a fun subject! We talked about balloons and other air actuated forms. Then we spent some time in class making some of our own creations with mylar.
There is truly something so whimsical and joyful of watching something go from flat to three dimensional, and even more rewarding when its something that you imagined up yourself!

Example of an Inflatable Product

The Lamzac inflatable lounge is a flat pack inflatable lounge that can fit up to 2 people. The product is made up of a large nylon tube that is folded in half which allows it to be filled from both ends. The shape is maintained through internal restraints, once there is enough pressure in the tube, the structure is able to hold the weight of 2 people.

This product isn't really robotic, but the simple application of air and the mechanism to reduce the volume in order to increase the interior pressure is so brilliant.

Flat Patterned Inflatable Experiments

I started with getting a linear tube to curl into a cylinder. I drew a lot of inspiration from watching Noah work earlier in the week and decided to utilize gathering material to achieve the "curling" movement.

If I were able to do this differently. I would like to introduce restrictions and create "air chambers" so that the inflation happens sequentially rather uniformly through the whole tube.
The reason why I hesitated to do this on the first try was the fear of the air pressure in the first few "air chambers" being too high and popping. If time and resources permit later in the semester, I would like to revisit this form and movement.

My next exercise was to incorporate a cable system into my inflatable creation somehow. I started with a square shaped balloon and created sealed tabs along the sides so I could feed some thread through the balloon without creating leaks.

 I created micro pleats on the 2 "faces" in hopes that the deflation and collapse would create a nice accordion affect, But I it seems that mylar is a material that behaves very differently than I expected. It does not retain any shape memory and will behave differently each time the same action is repeated.
If time allowed, I would have liked to add gathering points on the faces of the balloon as well to see how it would gather as it deflates.