IDeATe: Creative Soft Robotics - Handshake Robot

In Spring 2025, I took the course Creative Soft Robotics as part of CMU's IDeATe program, which takes advantage of the school's strengths in technology and the arts to explore domains which merge the two fields. For this course, we were tasked with researching soft robotics technologies and applying them to an interactive art installation.

In this project, I utilized soft robotics technologies to simulate the experience of sharing a (left-handed) handshake with another individual. For this I recreated "Fiber Jamming" Actuators from scientific literature which change in stiffness in response to air pressure changes and utilized low-pressure pneumatics controlled by a CircuitPython microcontroller to drive the pressure change in Fiber Jamming Actuators with the goal of emulating the stiffening of a human grip. To create the hand itself, I used lifecasting methods to take a cast of my hand and covered it in a soft rubber to create a "glove" to house the Fiber Jamming Actuators. To drive the handshaking motion without a motor, I constructed a soft suspension system from aluminum extrusion, rubber bands, and laser-cut CAD elements. This enabled the forearm to move in response to the user's applied motion.