3D printing has been playing a very important role in the research field of soft robotics, from the fabrication of casting mold of silicone rubber to direct 3D print soft structures and robots using TPU and liquid silicone or rubber-like materials. With the help of 3D printing, the soft robotics community expended rapidly, and applications of various soft robots have been explored intensively in recent years. However, soft robots fabricated with traditional soft materials (e.g., silicone rubber, TPU, rubber-like) are usually actuated by air pressure or motor-initiated cable-driven, which might restrict the applicability of these robots in applications such as biomedicine because of bucky actuation systems. Stimuli-responsive smart materials, such as hydrogels and shape memory polymers, response to environmental stimuli (water, heat, PH et al.) to generate desired motion and can be actuated remotely. Fabricating such smart materials using a specified 3D printer is defined as 4D printing, which was first proposed by Skylar Tibbits in 2014. In 4D printing, the resulting 3D shape can morph into different forms in response to environmental stimulus, with the 4th dimension being the time-dependent shape change after the printing. The environmental stimulus includes the changes of light, temperature, magnetic field, humidity, pH, and so on. 4D printing is a convenient approach for fabricating smart materials and has been investigated by researchers, but many challenges still remain, such as multimaterial 4D printing, 4D bioprinting, 4D printing simulation, inverse design problem, and potential applications. Additionally, smart materials can also be self-healable, biodegradable, and even edible, which makes them perfect candidates for fabricating future sustainable robots.
To address the above-mentioned challenges, this workshop will invite speakers of established researchers from different research fields, such as material science, 3D/4D printing, soft robotics, and bioengineering. The topics of the invited talks will cover a wide range of interests, such as 3D printing of hydrogel and its applications, tough conductive smart material, magnetically driven 4D printed soft robots, and bioengineering applications of smart material. Each talk will last 15 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of Q&A session. To provide hands-on experience in 3D gel printing, we will bring a hydrogel 3D printer to the workshop, demonstrate in vivo, and invite participants to join the 3D printing process of several sustainable hydrogels. The participants will be encouraged to communicate with the developers of the printer and discuss potential applications of the printer. To provide a venue for young researchers to interact with senior researchers, a student poster session will be conducted to showcase the current research activities regarding gel material and 4D printing. The workshop will be held in a hybrid format and a Zoom meeting will be set up to facilitate the participation of online speakers and attendees.
This workshop is expected to be the first workshop at IROS to relate the research fields of 3D/4D Printing and Soft Robotics, which can potentially expand the originality and diversity of workshop content at IROS 2024.
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