BenCC
Supporting Vendor
- Thread starter
- #1,861
Lots of 3d printed parts are used to fast prototype robotic components. My lab printers (E3D Toolchanger) have multiple extruder. It can print multiple materials, hard and soft, engineering grade and general purpose materials. I have replaced and upgraded my previous printers in order to have better print quality, higher throughput, and more important, higher design freedom. I expect that the printers similar to E3D toolchanger will go lower than $2000 in 2 years. So this is how these makes are related to my job.
I research and teach.
As a researcher, I work on variable stiffness robotic links and fingers. It has high load capability in high stiffness mode, has high dexterity in low stiff mode. It was all bio-inspired. It can also be co-robot which allows human operator in its workspace. The meat of the technology is in how you change the stiffness in a controlled timely manner.
As an educator, I teach a couple of engineering courses, like statics, dynamics, thermal dynamics, measurement, etc.