Electriflow taps advancements in soft robotics to create mechanisms that operate without traditional machine parts
A team of designers and engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder’s ATLAS Institute have tapped into new advancements in the field of soft robotics to develop paper-thin, moveable mechanisms. The objects, dubbed “Electriflow”, which don’t require motors or other traditional machinery parts to function, have been presented at the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2021 Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference. The researchers’ early creations include origami cranes that can bend their necks, moving flower petals, and fluttering insects. “Usually, books about butterflies are static,” said CU Boulder graduate student and team lead, Purnendu. “But could you have a butterfly flap its wings within a book? We’ve shown that it’s possible.” Electriflow took inspiration from previously developed “artificial muscles” by Christopher Keplinger at CU Boulder. His work is now available commercially through a company called Artimus Robotics. Keplinger employed a technology called h...
A team of designers and engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder’s ATLAS Institute have tapped into new advancements in the field of soft robotics to develop paper-thin, moveable mechanisms. The objects, dubbed “Electriflow”, which don’t require motors or other traditional machinery parts to function, have been presented at the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2021 Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference.
The researchers’ early creations include origami cranes that can bend their necks, moving flower petals, and fluttering insects.
“Usually, books about butterflies are static,” said CU Boulder graduate student and team lead, Purnendu. “But could you have a butterfly flap its wings within a book? We’ve shown that it’s possible.”
Electriflow took inspiration from previously developed “artificial muscles” by Christopher Keplinger at CU Boulder. His work is now available commercially through a company called Artimus Robotics. Keplinger employed a technology called h...
