The goal of this project is to build a variety of flexible robotic systems from scratch using planar fabrication techniques. These systems include a number of origami inspired foldable robots, and pneumatically actuated elastomeric soft robots. Made of flat plastic sheets, these robots carry their own custom flexible circuit boards. Our aim is to achieve general, easy, and simple techniques for printing functional machines, and demonstrate that a suite of devices can be created and programmed this way. Another goal is to enable wireless programming, communication, and remote control support for our devices, towards distributed robotics applications. An important challenge is the creation of a database of models for printable and composable designs. The database contains mechanical and electronic designs. It should be extensible and searchable. This SuperUROP will be working on creating a database of designs, generating designs, building devices, and/or developing customized programming infrastructure for these devices.

I have worked with Pranav Mistry at MIT Media Lab on an augmented reality project; on front-end web development during my internship at Google; and with Prof Jian-xin Xu at University of Singapore on fuzzy logic controller.