Final Project: the Soft Stepper

Since our soft fish idea went down the drain (no pun intended) we will move on to a new idea which will build on our previous work with soft actuators in a more fundamental fashion.

Our proposed project is a take on Harvard's PneuNets Robot for multiple modes of locomotion.

Our robot, the Soft Stepper, will be an adaptive multiple gate walker capable of moving along complex paths using soft-actuated legs attached to a rigid body chassis. 

The legs will be cast from a mould design similar to the fish tail, with enclosed cavities.

The walker will be controlled by an mbed mounted on-board via PCB, which will also contain the pressure sensors. The pump and solenoids, on the other hand, are much heavier and will likely be hosted on off board. 

In the final presentation, we will hopefully be able to demonstrate the versatility of this system by moving it in different directions, running it over terrain, and possibly altering planes of movement (squatting) or different speed settings.