Inflatables
Just exploring possibilities of creating shapes and forms with air and fillers instead of solid material. The primary purpose of this project was to design soft robotics parts that are functional and safe for human interactions.
the first inflatables were made of vinyl and baking paper. The baking paper are not going to be attached to vinyl after heating, the airway is created by the baking paper between vinyl. The presser works very well with vinyl. later I created patterns by cutting pattern on paper and embossed the pattern onto the vinyl.
For soft robotics, it took a few failures and experiments, and there are still a lot of things I can do to improve. I did my silicon mold on Rhino and printed it with a 3d printer. I should design some structure for tighter hold with pipes and valve. My camping pump is not strong enough. should work better with compressorsI made some adjuestment: i sealed the gap between silicon and pipe with silicon glue, it became better already.
My collaborator Hqeivy came up with the idea to use slime to fill the vinyl garment and here is the work she made before. We want to make something else with this technique in the future.
The vinyl inflatables were created by laser engraving. I tested different settings so that it can hold slime without leaking. I first tried to make a
diamond. It was not successful because the shape was too complicated. the joints got to cut through and leaked and I was not able to fill slime in.
The ice cube is inflatable without leaking.
Later I made some fashion sketches. I believe these looks can be achieved if I make some improvements on details and research more on materials.
