New gripper for the SO101 Robot Arm, which uses the Fin-Ray effect to allow gripping strangely shaped, thin, and brittle objects. Loosely inspired by the IRSL at KAIST, it works by using flexure segments that buckle in a way to stiffen the ends and soften grasp around the middle. This allows it to naturally fold and grip oddball shapes, curves, soft objects.
It can also reliably grip circular objects:
Unlike most standard fin-ray grippers, we use slanted ribs and an angled bottom to further control the direction of buckling. We FEA simulations in Autodesk Fusion of a bunch of geometries to observe the behaviour under load.
After identifying the top few candidates, we printed them in Biqu Morphlex TPU 70A and tested them on our benchy boat collection. The best performing one is available on Makerworld. You can download the design files to experiment.