Printable Flexible Robots for Remote Learning

Savita Vitthalrao Kendre; Gus Taylor Teran; Lauryn Whiteside; Tyler C Looney; Ryley Ian Wheelock; Surya Sebastian Ghai; Markus Nemitz

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Conference: ASEE-NE 2022
Location: Wentworth Institute of Technology, Massachusetts
Publication Date: April 22, 2022
Start Date: April 22, 2022
End Date: April 23, 2022
Page Count: 10
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--42267
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/42267
Download Count: 15

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Paper Authors

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Savita Vitthalrao Kendre Worcester Polytechnic Institute

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Savita is a Ph.D. student working at Robotic Materials Group at WPI, MA. She did her masters in Mechatronics at FH Aachen university of applied sciences in Germany and bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at Pune University in India. She has worked as a systems engineer for Honeywell automation in India for 3 years. She is interesting in creating novel bioinspired devices that are used for medical applications, underwater exploration, and monitoring climate change. Her research focuses on low cost fabrication techniques, fluidic and electric actuations, smart materials, and flexible electronics.

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Gus Taylor Teran

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gusteran.com
github.com/gusteran

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Assistant Professor – Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 2020-Present
Postdoc – Harvard University, 2020
PhD, MSc – The University of Edinburgh, 2018
BEng – Bochum University of Applied Sciences, 2012

I grew up in Germany where I studied electrical engineering in Bochum. I subsequently moved to Scotland to study electronics and robotics in Edinburgh. At Harvard, I focused on the development of embedded controllers for soft robots. Since 2020, I am an assistant professor of robotics engineering and electrical and computer engineering.

My research group (the Robotic Materials Group) focuses on the creation, modeling, and control of robotic soft matter. Instead of using soft materials for the design of manipulators, we are interested in robotizing otherwise passive elastomeric materials. The goal is to develop programmable robotic materials that are able to change their shape; insights from biological organisms will help to develop strategies for the control of morphology.

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance of digital fabrication to enable online learning, which remains a challenge for robotics courses. We introduce a teaching methodology that allows students to participate remotely in a hands-on robotics course involving the design and fabrication of robots. Our methodology employs 3D printing techniques with flexible filaments to create innovative soft robots; robots are made from flexible, as opposed to rigid, materials. Students design flexible robotic components such as actuators, sensors, and controllers using CAD software, upload their designs to a remote 3D printing station, monitor the print with a web camera, and inspect the components with lab staff before being mailed for testing and assembly. At the end of the course, students will have iterated through several designs and created fluidically-driven soft robots. Our remote teaching methodology enables educators to utilize 3D printing resources to teach soft robotics and cultivate creativity among students to design novel and innovative robots. Our methodology seeks to democratize robotics engineering by decoupling hands-on learning experiences from expensive equipment in the learning environment.

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Kendre, S. V., & Teran, G. T., & Whiteside, L., & Looney, T. C., & Wheelock, R. I., & Ghai, S. S., & Nemitz, M. (2022, April), Printable Flexible Robots for Remote Learning Paper presented at ASEE-NE 2022, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Massachusetts. 10.18260/1-2--42267