Trefoil Tentacle

I've been developing ways to use 3d powder printing to make air powered robots that have no hard moving parts. Using procedural modeling I can create rapid iterations, incremental designs, and inexpensive prototypes with a simple set of tools. Find more details at - http://bit.ly/softrobots

You can see video of this design in action here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkPeF-sYQ-0

This is an early prototype of a trefoil tentacle. There are three hollow ribbed volumes inside this tentacle that control its motion. It is controlled through a Processing interface and an Arduino switching a bank of solenoid valves using a simple Darlington transistor. You can grab the code here - http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=36579 and a detailed tutorial on how to build your own here http://learn.adafruit.com/silicone-robo-tentacle?view=all

This whole project has been made possible by the folks over at http://viridis3d.com especially Jim Bredt. They've been very generous in let