Trefoil Tentacle

I've been developing ways to use 3d powder printing to make air powered robots that have no hard moving parts. Using procedural modeling I can create rapid iterations, incremental designs, and inexpensive prototypes with a simple set of tools. Find more details at - http://bit.ly/softrobots

You can see video of this design in action here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkPeF-sYQ-0

This is an early prototype of a trefoil tentacle. There are three hollow ribbed volumes inside this tentacle that control its motion. It is controlled through a Processing interface and an Arduino switching a bank of solenoid valves using a simple Darlington transistor. You can grab the code here - http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=36579 and a detailed tutorial on how to build your own here http://learn.adafruit.com/silicone-robo-tentacle?view=all

This whole project has been made possible by the folks over at http://viridis3d.com especially Jim Bredt. They've been very generous in letting me use their machines and helping me figure out solutions to the material science challenges involved in this kind of work. They're awesome.