Year: 2017

The Adaptiv Robotic Shoe wins a Red Dot design award

| Matthew Borgatti

The Adaptiv is a futuristic sneaker design that features soft robotic elements to maximize performance while running, jumping, and breaking ankles on the court. The design was spearheaded by Jordan Diatlo of Leadoff Studio for the athletic data company SOLS. The project also featured research and development work by biomechanical engineer Richard Ranky. Super-Releaser contributed to the overall project, building a physical prototype that displayed the soft robotic mechanisms that dynamically adjusted the shoe’s fit and springiness intended to maximize performance during a game.

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Speaking about Soft Robots at NASA Ames

| Matthew Borgatti

Mark Micire (research scientist at the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames) and Yun Kyung Kim (human-robot​ iInteraction​ ​designer at NASA Ames) were incredibly generous in offering me an opportunity to speak with the AstroBee and Super Ball Bot groups at NASA Ames. We’ve been keeping an eye on Super Ball Bot over at Super-Releaser, particularly because of the way the teams working on it are bringing simulation and iterative prototyping together to solve the open-ended problems involved in designing a robust control system for bots that can configure themselves into nearly infinite shapes.

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“Iterating on Soft Robots” talk at Maker Faire

| Matthew Borgatti

Kari Love and I gave a talk at Maker Faire last year detailing how the maker mindset (tinkering to get an intuitive sense of the rules governing the system, hands-on learning, fast frugal iteration, and sharing) can be transformative for research into fundamental technologies and chronically intractable problems.

The key factor is going from zero to a working understanding of the ground truths underlying the problem you’re trying to solve as quickly as possible. From historical surveys of how transformative technologies have been developed in the past (like TRIZ), deeply focused research is no match for playful learning and interdisciplinary exploration.

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Super-Releaser has signed a book deal with Maker Media

| Matthew Borgatti

Super-Releaser has begun work on a book on soft robotics for Maker Media. Kari Love and I are writing a book that provides a history of the field of soft robotics, tutorials demonstrating its basic principles, more sophisticated projects like a control system and entire soft robots, and the potential of applied soft robotics from medical devices to human spaceflight to interplanetary exploration. As far as we can tell this will be the first book published demonstrating practical soft robotics.

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Super-Releaser Graduates from NYCEDC’s ELAB Program

| Matthew Borgatti

Super-Releaser was selected to participate in NYCEDC’s 2016 Elab mentorship program with our Neucuff medical device concept.

Elab is a six month program organized by Mary Howard that supports early-career researchers in the medical field, providing them with classes, business development expertise, mentorship, and access to resources like venture funding, legal experts, and research databases. Super-Releaser was selected to continue the development of our Neucuff and explore options for developing it into a fully realized medical device.

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Speaking about physical prototyping and soft robotics research at Construct3d at Duke University

| Matthew Borgatti

Matt Griffin of Ultimaker invited me to speak at Construct3d, an event they organized with Duke University.

Construct3D was a conference bringing together engineers, designers, coders, and educators all advancing research and physical fabrication on the cutting edge of their fields. I used the platform to speak about our research process at Super-Releaser, and how it can be applied to problem solving and R&D for emerging technologies.

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ShopBot Camera Arm – Handsfree Project Documentation

| Matthew Borgatti

UPDATE: This project now includes a metal locking plate that makes adjusting the arm and keeping it locked down for time-lapses easier. You can find a tutorial and description on that part of the build here.

I’ve been wanting an extra set of hands to hold a camera while I document projects for a long time. Kari and I are writing a book for MAKE all about soft robotics, and I figure there’s probably not going to be a better time to have a serious documentation setup than when someone’s paying me to do a good job at it. Since NYC Resistor just got a ShopBot and I’ve been meaning to get back into plywood fab for years, it seemed like a pretty auspicious syzygy. If you’d like to replicate this design for yourself, you can find the source files and project notes here. You can also see my photos from the cutting and assembly of the project here.

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