CHANNELS

Aerospace

Automotive

Automated & Autonomous Vehicles

Battery & Electrification Technology

Defense

Drone TV

Electronics

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Materials

Medical

Motion Control

RF & Microwave Technology

Robotics & Automation

Sensors & IoT

Test & Measurement

Aerospace
Automotive
Automated & Autonomous Vehicles
Battery & Electrification Technology
Defense
Drone TV
Electronics
Manufacturing & Prototyping
Materials
Medical
Motion Control
RF & Microwave Technology
Robotics & Automation
Sensors & IoT
Test & Measurement
Aerospace & Defense
Search Results

'Interactive Robogami' Tool Lets Anyone Make 3D-Printed, Foldable Robots

MIT  researchers are aiming to open up the design and fabrication of robots to all - enabling people of all skill levels to make robots without needing expert knowledge. Their 'Interactive Robogami' is a rapid prototyping tool to design robots that can be fabricated as flat sheets and then folded into 3D structures. The process lets users make affordable and materially versatile robots with short turnaround time. Users can choose from a database of print-and-fold parts to design their robots.

Topics:
Automation Manufacturing & Prototyping Materials Motion Control Rapid Prototyping & Tooling Robotics Software

More From SAE Media Group

    Transcript

    00:00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING] The idea behind interactive Robogami is that we want to make robots easier to customize and easier to create for people who are not necessarily trained in engineering design. And so we've basically designed the system which allows people to do this design very intuitively. There are two main ideas behind it. One is easy fabrication, and one is

    00:00:30 being able to virtually verify that your robot will work once it's been fabricated. On the fabrication side, we've been using 3D printing and folding techniques in order to make the fabrication very easy. And on the functionality side, we've incorporated simulations in order to make sure that the robot can actually walk and can actually perform tasks. 3D printing has a lot of advantages.

    00:00:54 You can print very complex structures. They're very rigid. Whereas in 2D fabrication, it's very fast and you can create basically lightweight but still strong structures. We took the advantage of both of them and we decided to 3D print 2D patterns. So this allowed us to get very rapid fabrication of stiff structures that are still lightweight. So designing a robot is challenging

    00:01:18 because there are many aspects that must be designed. You have the 3D shape, the motion, the electronics, the control software. So how do you allow a casual user of any skill level to design all of these aspects at the same time to create a robot that will solve the user's task? Using our system, users can create a robot body by simply mixing and matching parts from an existing catalog. And in the same way, the user designs a motion for the robot by selecting from a list of suggestions

    00:01:48 and modifying the motion parameters. And all of the models designed in the system can be directly fabricated and they are guaranteed to work in the real world. So what makes interactive Robogami powerful is that it helps users in designing robots that will perform tasks well by guiding users in improving both the motion and the geometry of the robot designs. For instance, making the robots faster or more stable

    00:02:13 or decreasing the fabrication costs to make them more affordable. What we've put into the database are a lot of wheeled robots and some legged robots. You could combine any part you want in the database with any other part into as complex a structure as you want. Our system would help you make that design functional. What we envision for the future is that a user would be able to go into the system

    00:02:36 and basically define the behavior of this robot in terms of tasks. You can very quickly design a tool that you can print out and that will help you do these tasks very cheaply, very quickly, very easily. So the dream is that this tool would enable robots to become prevalent in our everyday lives. Since the system is geared towards making design easy, making fabrication easy, then it's

    00:03:04 basically lowering the barrier to having everybody design and create their own robots. [MUSIC PLAYING]