{"id":156209,"date":"2024-09-24T17:08:53","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T21:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=156209"},"modified":"2024-10-02T16:14:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T20:14:42","slug":"just-how-safe-are-soft-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2024\/09\/24\/just-how-safe-are-soft-robots\/","title":{"rendered":"Just How Safe Are Soft Robots?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>A student tries to quantify soft robot safety, with the help of a remote control car.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2024\/just-how-safe-are-soft-robots\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devin Hahn<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When Sarah Alizadeh-Shabdiz thinks of robots, she pictures a bendy, wiggly piece of purple rubber. That\u2019s because Alizadeh-Shabdiz, a Boston University mechanical engineering major, spent her summer doing research in <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/srclab\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">BU\u2019s Soft Robotics Control Lab<\/a>. Working with Assistant Professor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/profile\/andrew-sabelhaus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrew Sabelhaus<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/me\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ME<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/se\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SE<\/a>), she studied novel ways to improve how soft robots are controlled, as well as the fundamental physics underlying how they interact with the environment.<\/p>\n<p>Made from bendable, pliable materials, such as silicone rubber, soft robots are considered to be safer than the metal variety, but very little research has been done to quantify that. Among Alizadeh-Shabdiz\u2019s summer research projects was an experiment, funded by a grant from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/urop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program<\/a>, designed to measure the force that one of the lab\u2019s soft robot limbs can exert on an object.<\/p>\n<p>In a video on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2024\/just-how-safe-are-soft-robots\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Brink<\/em><\/a>, find out why Alizadeh-Shabdiz needed the help of Toys\u201cR\u201dUs to complete her study, and how her love of mathematics inspires her research\u2014and her goal of becoming a teacher.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Visit <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2024\/just-how-safe-are-soft-robots\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Brink<\/a> <em>for the full story.<\/em><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sabelhaus and students are working on novel ways to improve how soft robots are controlled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2662,"featured_media":156217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,257,1084,909,908,910],"tags":[922],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156209"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156220,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156209\/revisions\/156220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}