Golecki Group - Soft Robotics Lab
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Mechanical Design | Pneumatic Actuators | Soft Robotics
Engineering Materials | Materials Testing | Rapid Prototyping
I’m currently conducting research with Dr. Holly Golecki on using designs in soft robotics to improve medical training facilities.
Some of the topics/concepts I’m researching:
Applications for pneumatic gelatin-based soft robotic actuators for creating low-cost, high-fidelity medical task trainers.
Exploring gelatin’s unique material properties to support it as a candidate for fabricating task trainers with increased fidelities.
I also prototyped different soft robotic actuators from the soft robotics toolkit!
Mckibben Muscle
These soft actuators mimic muscle contraction, making them ideal for helping with movement or enhancing performance.
Their movement is largely influenced by the mesh that’s used to limit the expansion of the balloon that’s getting pumped with air inside.
Particle Jamming Gripper
Jamming grippers are robotic end-effectors that switch between soft and rigid states, hardening under vacuum to securely grasp uniquely shaped objects.
They have a lot of applications in terms of developing unique surgical tools and can be used to handle a variety of geometries.
SDM Fingers
These fingers have been prototyped using shape-deposition manufacturing, where mechanisms are fabricated and assembled by alternating additive and subtractive manufacturing techniques.
Here, two different forms of silicone with different stiffness were cured sequentially into this specific geometry using this 3D-printed mold to achieve that particular bending moment.
Pneu-net Actuator
Pneu-net (pneumatic network) actuators are made from flexible, pneumatic materials that operate using air pressure.
Different materials and geometries can be used in combination to precisely control the behavior of the actuator.