This project developed a computational approach to the design and fabrication of machines such as robots that are created using folding processes. This project challenges the very idea of what is a robot: what materials it is built from, what shape it has, and what capabilities and function the robot can have.

Origami robots are autonomous machines, whose morphology and function are created using folding. Their bodies include folds that are dynamic, contributing to the actuation capabilities of the machine. The prototypical origami robot starts as a single planar sheet that is transformed into a complex three-dimensional (3-D) morphology using folding. Origami robots have built-in compliance through the geometry of the folds and creases in the material.  Our contributed algorithmic results on the universality of origami suggest that folding is a general method to design anything. Our project contributed new mobile robots, novel grippers, and even novel approaches to classical mechanisms such as pistons which improve performance significantly.

Folding can also be used as a vehicle for physical change to create shape-shifting machines that take on the best shape required by the task at hand, including reconfigurable sheets and support structures that precisely assemble small devices. When designed carefully, a fold pattern can produce not just a 3-D shape, but a functional robot, one that can continue to move and transform. Our project contributed specific examples of robots that can take on different morphologies and capabilities using unit-modules such as the 3d M-blocks, or using exoskeletons.

Our approach based on Interactive Robogami redefines how we make and use robots, using computation.  Traditionally, robots have been complex systems consisting of many parts (e.g. rigid members, actuators, sensors, microprocessors), requiring significant human development effort and expertise in multiple disciplines to design, build, and control. Conventional fabrication of robots is a serial assembly process where the addition of design elements increases the complexity of fabricating and controlling the robot. Folding is a means of decoupling design complexity from fabrication complexity. It enables creating new 3-D structures from planar sheets that can be made from a wide range of materials (e.g. plastics, metal, paper, rice paper, sausage casing, etc.) by manipulating the planar sheet intuitively. When these techniques are leveraged for robot manufacturing, the results are fast to produce and require little manual assembly.

The outcomes of this project include advances in computational design algorithms, materials, designs, and robot systems. A key contribution in computational design theory describes the universality of origami as a way to design any geometric shape. Folding and Self-folding can also be used as a vehicle for physical change to create shape-shifting machines that take on the best shape required by the task at hand, including sheets with programmable shape and support structures that precisely assemble small devices. When designed carefully, a fold pattern can produce not just a 3-D shape, but a functional robot, one that can continue to move and transform. Our research has shown that theoretically, any mechanism is possible by using algorithms for fold pattern composition on individual designs for foldable joints, and more broadly a variety of mobile robots. These designs can be converted into practical devices using a variety of fabrication methods, for example to create Robot Grippers and Wheel-based Robots.

Using metamorphosis in nature as inspiration, we introduced an alternative approach to extending the capabilities of a robot by enabling it to cyclically acquire multiple self-folding origami sheets called "exoskeletons" Like an egg, the system commences with a cubic magnet "robot", called Primer. The robot hierarchically develops its morphology by combining with different exoskeletons: for example, it becomes able to move faster, to become bigger, or to employ different locomotion on ground, in water, and in the air.

Origami folding can be used to create a new class of very strong actuators we call Fluid Driven Origami Actuator Muscles (FOAMS). Artificial muscles hold promise for safe and powerful actuation for common machines and robots.

Origami design and fabrication can be used as an effective education tool. To this end, this project contributed the Origami Robot Garden, a platform with over 100 robots (flowers, sheep, ducks) that can be used for teaching making and computational thinking to middle school students.

In addition to advancing the science and engineering of origami machines, the project trained many undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students, and contributed outreach activities to schools through hands-on activities and to the general public through publications in broad visibility venues such as Science, Nature, and PNAS, and interactions with the press to bring the results to the public. We hosted numerous school groups, we participated in summer academies, and organized events for the Hour of Code. We also developed a participatory performance based on color-programmable folded umbrellas in collaboration with the Pilobolus Dance Company. Over 1000 members of the public participated in these performances. 

Last Modified: 05/30/2019
Modified by: Daniela Rus