Biomimicry and Soft Robotics

Please join us for a stellar talk by Matt Borgatti, as he takes us through the process of one single seamless piece of silicone to a walking quadruped cast, as well as a discussion on the cutting edge of soft robotics.

Abstract:

Autonomous moving things come in two flavors. You’ve got robots, and you’ve got biology. Seldom in the natural world do you find solutions to the problems of grasping, manipulating, and moving like the ones we’ve come up with. Instead you find complex integrated systems that distribute load and provide power in a thousand brilliant ways.

This talk introduces some biological systems (like the beak of a squid which allows a creature basically made of protein-rich jelly to bite the heads off things orders of magnitude harder than it on the durometer scale), describes the engineering behind them, and discusses methods newly minted through digital fabrication and 3d printing for duplicating them.

In Matthew’s research at Super-Releaser he’s designed pneumatic soft robots with the goal of generating complex practical mechanisms from simple, easily mass produced methods. He’s going to bring his experience making things like a walking quadruped cast from one single seamless piece of silicone to a discussion of what’s on the cutting edge of soft robotics, where these technologies can be applied, and how you can start playing with your own squishy robots.

Bio:

Matthew Borgatti is the founder of Super-Releaser, a soft robotics company dedicated to bringing human compatible robots out of the lab by making their design and manufacture cheap and simple. Super-Releaser is currently developing medical device prototypes, collaborating with universities offering soft robotics manufacturing expertise, and hacking away at the core technologies involved in making better robots.

Matthew Borgatti got his start in prototyping in the film industry, making animatronic props for movies including Snakes on a Plane and Aliens Vs Predator 2. He combined the techniques he learned casting lifelike monsters in silicone with CAD and materials science learned earning an industrial design degree at RISD. He specializes in rapid prototyping, 3d printing, and DFM.

Super-Releaser (http://superreleaser.com/), founded in 2011, is a small group of multidisciplinary artists, designers, and engineers. Their latest experiments include robotic elbow bands for rehabilitating stroke victims and methods for mass manufacturing injection molded robots.