VSA-CubeBots for Rapid Soft Robot Prototyping

Nowadays, rapid robot prototyping is a desired capability of any robotics laboratory. Combining the speed of 3D plastic printing and the use of custom Open Source electronic hardware/software solutions, our laboratory successfully developed and used tools related to variable impedance robot technology. This paper describes how we capitalized the design and use of one kind of variable stiffness actuators as a modular tool to prototype and test in a quick fashion several robot capabilities. The extension of such a modular tool for rapid prototyping allowed us to use it in several applications and scenarios, including the educational setting, aiming to speed up the gap between theory and practice in robotics. The complete palette of developments of our laboratory in hardware/software as well as some robotic systems applications shown here, are open source and contribute to the Natural Motion Initiative.