During my internship at CSIRO, I was tasked with creating a new robot foot that resembled a dog paw. In addition to this, the paw had to be able to pick up objects through the power of jamming.
The paw design was based off a 3D scan of a dog skeleton, with extensive research and focus on the tendons, bone structure and joint layout. By utilising the capabilities of the Stratasys Connex3 Polyjet 3D printer, one-shot printing was plausible. This machine allowed for parts to be printed in multiple colours and materials, including varying shore grades for flexible parts. With this machine, sample joints and tendons were constructed to behave like a dog joint and the entire design was modular to allow for easy testing, repairing and improving. This approach was vital for completing this project in the time frame and allowed for rapid prototyping to occur. With the elasticity property of shoreA40 material, the bones could conform to a terrain and return to their original position with consistency and ease.
The jamming aspect of the paw was achieved by replacing the metacarpal pad of a dog paw with a malleable membrane. The shell was filled with granular material and the air was vacuumed out to achieve the ability of picking up an object, also known as soft robotics.
The work performed in this project covered a vast range of engineering skills, theory, software and hardware and the results can be seen in this publication, One-Shot 3D-Printed Multimaterial Soft Robotic Jamming Grippers.
