Maker Faire Long Island 2025
Artificial muscles with tunable stiffness
Home: New York, United States of America
Soft robots are important alternatives to the standard rigid robots we typically think about whenever we need them to interact with humans, manipulate objects, or move on uneven terrains. However, these soft robots still have to become stiff on command to perform different tasks, similar to our natural muscles. Current ways of stiffening soft robots do not allow them to tune their stiffness, thus limiting their versability. In this exhibit, I will introduce the field of soft robots and why they are important, and show my preliminary research results on soft artificial muscles with tunable stiffness through some demonstrators, where deformations are tuned by changing internal structure and position of the jamming material used for stiffening.
https://boldinialain.wixsite.com/home
Maker
Alain Boldini
Alain Boldini is an Assistant Professor at New York Institute of Technology in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He received his Bachelor's of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, his Master's of Science in Aeronautical/Aerospace Engineering from Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino, and his Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from New York University Tandon School of Engineering. He is passionate about understanding the behavior of complex natural and social systems. He is the author of over 30 publications in international, peer-reviewed journals.
https://boldinialain.wixsite.com/homeWhat Inspired You to Make This?
As a PhD student, I have always been fascinated by how natural muscles are still much superior to any artificial muscle we have produced so far, even if the materials they are made of are much stronger and powerful than our muscle fibers. Starting as an Assistant Professor at the New York Institute of Technology, I have decided to delve deep into making artificial muscles better, to help develop high-performance soft robots that can revolutionize medicine and manufacturing.
