Week 4: Silicone Casting

First Silicone Casting

V1: I cut the openings 15 mm from the bottom instead of the top

V2: I cut the openings 15mm from the top this time, I think it will work better.

my mold submerged in the mixture (dyed it purple)

It was going well up until the point where we pour the mixture into the mold. We (Michelle and I) both took waaaaaaaay long to do it and it got super messy, so it started to cure. I definitely didn’t fill up the mold all of the way. Next time, I will try to pour faster.

quite messy - didn't fill the mold up all the way

Silicone Soft Robotics Paper

An Electrostatic/Gecko-Inspired Adhesives Soft Robotic Gripper

By V. Alizadehyazdi, M. Bonthron and M. Spenko
Published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 5, no. 3, July 2020

In this paper, the authors concluded out that they could create an improved gripping device by using properties found in geckos, combined with an electrostatic adhesive They begin by explaining that the benefit of soft grippers is that they can grasp objects without “requiring prior knowledge of object geometry” because it can form to the shape of the object. I couldn’t find in the paper where they explain what makes the adhesive “gecko-inspired” but going off of the images, but after a quick google search it looks like a gecko’s feet is made up of horizontal grips in their skin.

This can be used for gripping fabric and rough surfaces, and also in space (of course).