A Robot out of a 3D Printer

An exploration of 3D printed Thermal Actuators

Master thesis (2017)

Authors

M.A.E. Maas Industrial Design Engineering

Contributors

K.M.B. Jansen (mentor)

Song Zhao (coach)

Martin van Hecke (graduation committee member)

Faculty

Industrial Design Engineering, Industrial Design Engineering

Robot Voxel8 3D Printed Actuators PTA Turtle Conductive 3D printing MDDM

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Published Date

01-12-2017

Language

English

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Faculty

Industrial Design Engineering

Abstract

This report is an exploration of 3D Printed Thermal Actuators (PTAs). The goal of the project is to create a 3D printed demonstrator that shows the qualities of PTAs.

PTAs are created with a Voxel8 Multi-material printer which prints both PLA and a silver paste. When electrical power is applied to the silver trace, the plastic will heat up because of Joule heating in the silver trace the plastic will react to the heat by bending. This makes it an example of 4D printing. Compared to other 4D printed samples, PTAs have the advantage that they can repeat their motion. Additionally, PTAs are able to focus their energy locally, because of the placement of the silver traces.

To create a better understanding of the potential of PTAs, the Material Driven Design Method (Karana, et al., 2015) was used and set of cards with the different qualities was created. The material experience vision has been defined as; a PTA should be admired, not handled. Just like a flower that is blooming or a ladybug that walks over your hand.

Multiple design ideas were generated by using the input from the set of cards with qualities, characteristics in nature and random words. With these ideas, three different concepts were created: Inchworm, Sloth and Turtle. Of these design ideas, the Inchworm and Turtle scored quite similar. However, the Turtle can also carry its own battery and therefore has the most design potential. The Turtle was chosen to be further developed into the 3D printed demonstrator.

The result of this graduation project is the Turtle Tinybot. Placing the active part under an angle, combined with a rough floor and Arduino controlled power supply, proved to be the best method to create locomotion. The pattern of the shell of the Turtle Tinybot has been carefully selected because it has several functions. The final design has a shell with a voronoi pattern, two hind legs and a tail.

This report is an exploration of 3D Printed Thermal Actuators (PTAs). The goal of the project is to create a 3D printed demonstrator that shows the qualities of PTAs.