{"id":8206,"date":"2025-09-18T11:11:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T15:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/?p=8206"},"modified":"2026-01-29T15:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:18:11","slug":"ranzani-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/2025\/09\/18\/ranzani-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing a Soft Bioinspired Grasper for Underwater Manipulation\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Mentors<\/h3>\n\n\t<ul class=\"profile-listing profile-format-advanced\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n<li class=\"profile-item profile-item-advanced has-title post-4525 profile type-profile status-publish hentry departments-bme departments-mse-dept departments-me affiliation-faculty program-year-yr-2021 program-year-yr-2022 program-year-yr-2023 program-year-yr-2024 program-year-186\">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/profile\/tommaso-ranzani\/\" class=\"profile-link profile-link-advanced\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<figure class=\"profile-photo profile-photo-advanced\"><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"\/photonics-programs\/files\/2025\/09\/ranzani_HS-600x600-1-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\t\t\t\t<h6 class=\"profile-name profile-name-advanced\">Tommaso Ranzani<\/h6>\n\t\t<p class=\"profile-title profile-title-advanced\">Assistant Professor (ME, MSE, BME)<\/p>\t<\/a>\n\n\t\n<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n<li class=\"profile-item profile-item-advanced has-title post-8219 profile type-profile status-publish hentry departments-me affiliation-graduate-student program-year-186 profile-field-mentor\">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/profile\/anna-maria-moran\/\" class=\"profile-link profile-link-advanced\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<figure class=\"profile-photo profile-photo-advanced\"><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"\/photonics-programs\/files\/2025\/09\/Moran_Anna-Maria-300x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\t\t\t\t<h6 class=\"profile-name profile-name-advanced\">Anna Maria Moran<\/h6>\n\t\t<p class=\"profile-title profile-title-advanced\">PhD Candidate<\/p>\t<\/a>\n\n\t\n<\/li>\n\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Project Description<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The Morphable Biorobotics Lab at Boston University is developing a bioinspired soft underwater gripper for grasping delicate marine samples. This technology is key to ensuring adaptability in unpredictable environments without inflicting damage to the sample, the environment or the robot itself. This REU project aims to design a soft gripper that encloses around fragile objects similar to a caging mechanism. Tasks involve operating relevant machinery for soft robotic fabrication, such as a CO2 laser cutter and heat press, as well as design in CAD. The performance of the prototypes will be analyzed via visual data of the grippers ability to grasp a variety of objects and quantitative data of the forces exerted by the gripper.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container  bu_collapsible_open\" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h3 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Research Goals<\/h3><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" >\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Design and fabrication of a soft inflatable gripper<\/li>\n<li>Identify the ideal performance characteristics of the gripper<\/li>\n<li>Conduct grasping and manipulation demos of gripper performance.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container  bu_collapsible_open\" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h3 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Learning Goals<\/h3><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" >\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0 Soft robotic fabrication with relevant machinery<\/li>\n<li>Design in CAD<\/li>\n<li>Building effective testing set-ups<\/li>\n<li>Qualitative and quantitative data processing<\/li>\n<li>Team working<\/li>\n<li>Work towards a scientific publication<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Timeline<\/h3>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>Weeks 1-2: <\/strong><\/span>Training on equipment and fabrication process, construction of a base gripper design<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>Weeks 3-6:<\/strong><\/span> Altering design parameters of base gripper, fabrication of new designs until a diverse set of working prototypes is established.<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>Weeks 7-8:<\/strong><\/span> Qualitative testing of prototypes in water tank, taking visual data of gripper grasping various objects with camera.<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>Weeks 9:<\/strong><\/span> Quantitative testing with Universal Robots robot arm, collecting data on force exerted by each prototype<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>Weeks 10:<\/strong><\/span> Data processing, create poster presentation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mentors Project Description The Morphable Biorobotics Lab at Boston University is developing a bioinspired soft underwater gripper for grasping delicate marine samples. This technology is key to ensuring adaptability in unpredictable environments without inflicting damage to the sample, the environment or the robot itself. This REU project aims to design a soft gripper that encloses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19768,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19768"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8206"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10412,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8206\/revisions\/10412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/photonics-programs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}