Abstract

Do you like making paper airplanes? What about origami animals? Have you ever thought about making a paper robot? In this engineering project, you will make a three-dimensional robotic gripper that starts out as a single flat sheet of paper! Try it out—see what objects you can pick up with the gripper, then see if you can improve the design.

Objective

Build an origami robotic gripper and improve the design.

Introduction

The gripper consists of two finger shapes and a base where two thin strands, or tendons, enter. Below is a cut-out cardstock template with dotted lines that indicate where to fold.

When you think of robots, what materials do you think of? Maybe you have seen metal robots in movies or have a plastic toy robot at home. But have you ever seen a robot made from paper, cardboard, or foam board, like the one in Figure 1? Paper might not be the first material that comes to mind when you think about robots, but there are some surprising advantages to using it as a construction material!

Paper is cheap and readily available. This makes it easy to build a robot from paper, even if you do not have access to more expensive tools or materials. Paper is very fast to cut, so you do not have to wait hours to make parts like you do with a 3D printer. You can make moving parts with paper by making folds that can bend back and forth, so you do not need any additional materials. Paper is also very strong for its weight (engineers say it has a high strength-to-weight ratio), allowing you to design sturdy but lightweight structures. Of course, there are some disadvantages too. You probably do not want to get your paper robot wet or expose it to flames! Thinking about advantages and disadvantages of different materials is something engineers do as part of the engineering design process.

In this project you will make a robotic gripper and use it to pick things up. Inspired by origami, the entire gripper is folded into a three-dimensional shape from a single sheet of paper (Figure 2). The simple gripper has two "fingers" and two tendons. Pulling on the tendons makes the finger joints bend, just like the fingers in a real hand. You can follow the steps in the project procedure to make the gripper shown in Figure 2, then use the engineering design process to try to improve the design and make it better at picking things up. Get ready to start building your own paper robots!

Terms and Concepts

• Strength-to-weight ratio
• Engineering design process
• Origami
• Tendon

Questions

• What are some advantages and disadvantages of using paper to make robots?
• What are some real-world uses for robotic grippers?

Materials and Equipment

Note: You can print the template for the gripper design and cut it out with scissors, but you can also use a laser cutter or vinyl cutter if you have access to one. See procedure for details.

• Cardstock
• Printer
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Something pointy, like a sharp pencil or pushpin
• School glue or glue stick
• Optional: Hobby knife
• Optional: Reverse-action tweezers
• An assortment of small objects to pick up with your gripper
• Lab notebook
• Pen or pencil

Variations