Robo Jelly : Progress

Even since I first saw the Festo Aquajelly I’ve wanted to make one of my own. With the arrival of our brand new Flash Forge 3D printer…. this week seemed like the right time to start prototyping.

If you haven’t ever seen the Festo Jelly, I advise you to check out the video below. This company inspires me. They sell fancy pneumatic parts and actuators but for shits and grins they make amazing robots that mimic the organic movement of animals. I mean, in a fantasy I’d come stay at their headquarters and make things with their parts for days on end…but who that I know of wouldn’t?

I sat down earlier this week and drew up some parts in Sketchup. With a couple of revisions I made this jelly skeleton. It took about an hour to print one set of arms (I needed six total). So at around midnight last night I was able to assemble the whole thing. Below is one set of arms :

Three sets of arms :

Before heading to SYN Shop for robot night tonight I added some thin strips of white ABS to the exterior to simulate the skin…. just to get an idea of how the things works mechanically once all the parts were attached to each other….

I have no idea how I’m going to actuate this thing yet… but we’ll figure it out in the next week. Wish me luck!