Through Yonder Window Breaks: The Rise of JULIET

Goal of this project was to design, build, and test a working wireless 15-bar tensegrity. Tensegrities are a class of soft robots, meaning that their physical structure is naturally deformable. JULIET is an acronym which stands for jiggle utilizing low internal energy tensegrity. She is made out of 15 acrylic struts in compression which counteract the tensile forces of the 78 springs which connect them. Three of the struts are equipped with a brushless DC vibration motor, lithium-ion polymer batteries and an RFduino Bluetooth communicator, in order to resonate the struts at the natural frequencies of the tensegrity, and ultimately control the movement of the robot. JULIET stands ready to move the world of robotics into the future.