2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The emerging field of soft robotics has a wide range of applications in many different fields. Due to its recent emergence and development, it is important to formally expose students interested in STEM to this rapidly developing interdisciplinary field. We have addressed this issue by assembling the undergraduate engineering students to create a hands-on experience for college-level engineering students, allowing them to become familiar with a subset of soft-robotics-relevant scientific concepts and exciting them about the field. Students introduced to this project will be exposed to various topics of soft materials, magnetism, and parametric design that interplay in the design of soft robotic systems. This paper presents a “Wacky-Waving-Non-Inflatable-Arm-Flailing-Tube-Man” that undergraduate students can design, build, analyze, and test. The project can be tailored as a classroom activity, a laboratory exercise, or a group project. Students will design several tests to determine the best design to achieve a tailored flailing configuration. The two major elements of their designs that students will be able to modify include: 1) a selection among a subset of provided silicone elastomers that they will select based on their material properties (modulus of rigidity, hyperelasticity, etc.) and 2) the integration of ferromagnetic particles into the elastomer matrix or embedding a magnetic structure inside their design as a magnetic core. Once students have selected their design parameters and constructed their ‘Flailing-Tube-Man’, their design will be driven by external electromagnets also designed by the students. Through an iterative design process, the students can fine-tune their design and control the flailing parameters defined by the instructor. The motivation for this activity is to reinforce students’ knowledge of soft material properties and electromagnetics concepts. The knowledge and skills used in this project form the building blocks for various soft robotic applications. By using an iterative design aimed at meeting the ‘flailing’ criteria of a customer (their instructor), this project also endeavors to teach students elements of parametric design and control principles by having them conduct their own tests to determine the best way for their design to flail about. The combination of electromagnetics and materials science is also an excellent opportunity to reinforce concepts taught within a typical engineering program. This paper details the supplies needed, possible methods of construction, and suggested learning outcomes associated with the activity.