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The principles underlying the art of origami paper folding can be applied to design sophisticated metamaterials with unique mechanical properties. By exploiting the flat crease patterns that determine the dynamic folding and unfolding…
Due to its rigid foldability and predictable kinematics, the reverse fold is the fundamental mechanism behind some of the most well known origami kinematic structures, including the Miura Ori, Yoshimura, and waterbomb patterns. However, the…
Screw-based locomotion is a robust method of locomotion across a wide range of media including water, sand, and gravel. A challenge with screws is their significant number of impactful design parameters that affect locomotion performance.…
Thin surfaces are ubiquitous in nature, from leaves to cell membranes, and in technology, from paper to corrugated containers. Structural thinness imbues them with flexibility, the ability to easily bend under light loads, even as their…
A surface is considered flexible if it allows a continuous deformation that preserves both metric and smoothness. We introduce a novel construction method, called 'base + crinkle,' for generating a broad class of non-self-intersecting…
For millions of adults with mobility limitations, eating meals is a daily challenge. A variety of robotic systems have been developed to address this societal need. Unfortunately, end-user adoption of robot-assisted feeding is limited, in…
Origami metamaterial design enables drastic qualitative changes in the response properties of a thin sheet via the addition of a repeating pattern of folds based around a rigid folding motion. Known also as a mechanism, this folding motion…
The leaf-like origami structure was inspired by geometric patterns found in nature, exhibiting unique transitions between open and closed shapes. With a bistable energy landscape, leaf-like origami is able to replicate the autonomous…
Structures and/or materials with engineered functionality, capable of achieving targeted mechanical responses reacting to changes in external excitation, have various potential engineering applications, e.g. aerospace, oceanographic…
This paper presents the simple synergistic combination of a novel contracting soft pneumatic actuator with a soft clutch (linear brake). The device is designated the Inverting-tube Vacuum ACtuator with Clutch (InVACC). The actuator alone…
We describe a fluidic actuator design that replaces the sealed chamber of a hydraulic cylinder using a soft actuator to provide compliant linear compression with a large force ($\geq$100 N) at a low operation pressure ($\leq$50 kPa) for a…
This study introduces an innovative ventilation system, which leverages an origami-inspired structure to improve and regulate natural airflow driven by the stack effect, with applications in underground mines and buildings. The proposed…
We consider the zero-energy deformations of periodic origami sheets with generic crease patterns. Using a mapping from the linear folding motions of such sheets to force-bearing modes in conjunction with the Maxwell-Calladine index theorem…
Rigid origami is a branch of origami with great potential in engineering applications to deal with rigid-panel folding. One of the challenges is to compactly fold the polyhedra made from rigid facets with a single degree of freedom. In this…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
Folding nanopatterned flat sheets into complex 3D structures enables the fabrication of meta-biomaterials that combine a rationally designed 3D architecture (e.g., to tune mechanical and mass transport properties) with nanoscale surface…
Exploration of various applications is the frontier of research on inflatable robots. We proposed an articulated robots consisting of multiple pneumatic bladder links connected by rolling contact joints called Hillberry joints. The bladder…
Origami structures are characterized by a network of folds and vertices joining unbendable plates. For applications to mechanical design and self-folding structures, it is essential to understand the interplay between the set of folds in…
Miniature locomotion robots with the ability to navigate confined environments show great promise for a wide range of tasks, including search and rescue operations. Soft miniature locomotion robots, as a burgeoning field, have attracted…
As we enter the age of designer matter - where objects can morph and change shape on command - what tools do we need to create shape-shifting structures? At the heart of an elastic deformation is the combination of dilation and distortion,…