Rupin Chheda
Rupin Chheda has a background in engineering, and is a tinkerer at heart. None of his childhood toys survived in one piece for more than 30 minutes! He was always curious to know what’s inside them. This curiosity led him to neatly unscrew all his toys and gadgets and explore what’s inside.
His life story has been about significant engineering failures, like building a 3D printer multiple times (and not succeeding even once), building softwares that no one ever used, or just generally fooling around with new things and systems. The larger idea has always been about building things without any preconceived notions of what success looked like. The absolute fun of creating is not being overwhelmed by constraints!
On the professional front, he has almost two decades of experience in the IT development and consulting industry, 0 to 1 startup scaling, and has served as Assistant VP for WhiteHatJr.
He currently leads the STREAM practice for the prestigious Kanakia Educational Institutions in Mumbai.
Introduction to Bio-Inspired Soft Robotics
Robotics are beginning to cross that line from absolutely primitive motion to motion that resembles animal or human behavior.
J J Abrams
Date(s):
May 7-28, 2023
Imagine robots that look more like caterpillars and starfish rather than the giant robotic arms that you see on factory floors...this is the world of Soft Robots!
While traditional robots are constructed from rigid links and simple joints, the new generation of robotic devices are soft, using flexible materials. The growing field of soft robotics offers exciting new approaches for bio-inspired design, fast and low-cost prototyping, and integrating novel materials with digital control. These soft robots have the potential to benefit humanity in a wide variety of applications, ranging from medical devices that interface gently with the humanbody to robot explorers for remote or dangerous environments.
Introduction to Bio-inspired Soft Robotics is an interdisciplinary course that brings together Biodesign, Mechanical Engineering & Robotics. Students will be introduced to the following topics:
Bioinspired soft robots
Engineering with soft materials
Design and fabrication techniques for soft robots
Principles of soft actuation mechanisms
Sensing and control technologies for automating soft robots
Students will:
Learn the principles of the engineering design process
Build using different kinds of actuation mechanisms like the muscle, tendon and variations of these mechanisms with critical thinking on measuring capacity to hold, lift and push.
Appreciate fundamental mechanisms of actuation, sensing, and control in the context of soft robotics systems.
Apply their knowledge and skills of electronics and programming to automate their soft robots using stored pressure in small pneumatics tanks, digital valves, logic building, simple sensors, etc.
Build a project of their choice, kids start to think about it from week 1 with critique and questioning across three weeks.
This course carries an additional kit fee of Rs 8,000.
All participants in this course are required to bring a laptop for programming purposes.