JamBot: A Jamming-Based Soft Robot
A morphing and moving soft robot ‘blob’ takes its first steps. The JamBot was developed by a collaboration of our lab with researchers from iRobot Corporation, Joseph DeSimone’s group at UNC, and Liquidia Technologies.
This is the first demonstration of shape change and locomotion in a jamming-based robot. The clip also includes a nice intro to the general jamming principle as applied to granular matter.
This page contains videos about our research, plus clips from the annual Holiday lecture “Physics with a Bang!” by Heinrich Jaeger, Sid Nagel & friends. Feel free to download for lectures or personal use as long as you acknowledge the source. More movies can by found in the Gallery.
Impact-Activated Solids
Hit a liquid to turn it into a solid? This can happen for dense suspensions (in this case a ~50/50 mix of cornstarch and cold water). The “solid” is formed by temporarily jamming the liquid. It is generated right underneath the impact site and propagates into the (still) liquid region in front of it. As a result, forces are generated that are large enough to support the weight of a grown person when stepping on the suspension. Here we discuss the experiment.
A New Approach to Robotic Gripping
The universal jamming gripper was developed by a collaboration between our lab, Hod Lipson’s group from the Cornell Creative Machines Lab, and iRobot Corporation.
This video was made by John Amend at Cornell.
Physics with a Bang! (Part I)
Compilation of clips from the first annual Holiday lecture, held December 2008.
Amazing Shapes of Vibrated Cornstarch
A winning entry to the Chicago MRSEC’s Sight & Sounds of Science competition, by our lab’s Terry Bigioni, Eric Corwin and Matthias Möbius. The material is a 50/50 mix of cornstarch and cold water, shaken vertically up and down at 30 Hz. The views shown are from top (first half of video) and from the side (second half), when also some food coloring was added.
Granular Streams Mini-Tutorial
Elena Ruyter directed, filmed, and edited this video while working in our lab as a high school student during the summer of 2009.
Physics with a Bang! (Part II)
Compilation of clips from the first annual Holiday lecture, held December 2008.
3D-printed granular matter
Using evolutionary algorithms to find optimal particle shapes and 3d-printing for experimental verification.