Announcing 2016 Soft Robotics Toolkit Competition

The resource website, Soft Robotics Toolkit has announced the 2nd edition of the Soft Robotics Competitions.  For the 2016 calendar year, the competition will be divided into three demographic groups: high school students, college students and research contributors.

Important Dates:

Entries in all three categories share the same key dates for the competition:

• January 2016: Registration opens.
• February 2016: Registered teams’ assigned project wikis released.
• March 31st, 2016: Project title and description due.
• June 30th, 2016: Team wikis are frozen. Teams will not be allowed to edit their wiki after this date.
• August 2016: Winners are announced.

Scoring:

The scoring criteria is divided into three categories with a total worth of 50 points:

• Project Idea (20 points)
• Project Implementation (10 points)
• Project Documentation (20 points)

The high school and college teams will be graded on the use of soft and inflatable materials while the “research contributor” teams will be scored on creativity and significant advancement in the field of soft robotics.  The only major requirement across all categories is that at least one element used in the project is  from the Soft Robotics Toolkit website.

Prizes:

All winers will be featured on the Soft Robotics Toolkit website and could win cash prizes.  You can see the  winners of the previous 2015 competition on the toolkit site here.  One of the runners-up is a soft inflatable exoskeleton glove designed to counteract hand tremors.

What is the Soft Robotics Toolkit website?

This is a collection of resources to accelerate researchers and hobbyists in the exciting new field of soft robotics.  The site contains ideas, example projects, CAD files, as well as material lists and recommended suppliers.  It is primarily backed by the Harvard Bio Design Lab and Wyss Institute and the list of contributors and sponsors continues to grow.  One of the leads that has spearheaded the site is Professor Conor Walsh who is renowned for his work on soft exoskeletons.  For more on his work see Disruptive: Bio-inspired Wearable Robotics At The Wyss Institute.

Interested in the Soft Robotics Toolkit Competition?

Head out to the main competition website here: http://softroboticstoolkit.com/2016-soft-robotics-competitions

Good luck to all teams and participants!