Towards One-Dollar Robots: An Integrated Design and Fabrication Strategy for Electromechanical Systems
This work addresses the accessibility problem for robotics enthusiasts and educators by enabling the creation of simple robotic devices at extremely low cost, though it appears incremental in its application of existing techniques to a new domain.
The authors tackled the problem of high-cost robotics by developing an integrated design and fabrication strategy using origami-inspired cut-and-fold and E-textiles techniques to build low-cost electromechanical systems, resulting in a functional electromechanical oscillator costing about 0.40 USD that can generate electrical oscillation under constant-current power.
To improve the accessibility of robotics, we propose a design and fabrication strategy to build low-cost electromechanical systems for robotic devices. Our method, based on origami-inspired cut-and-fold and E-textiles techniques, aims at minimizing the resources for robot creation. Specifically, we explore techniques to create robots with the resources restricted to single-layer sheets (e.g. polyester film) and conductive sewing threads. To demonstrate our strategy's feasibility, these techniques are successfully integrated into an electromechanical oscillator (about 0.40 USD), which can generate electrical oscillation under constant-current power and potentially be used as a simple robot controller in lieu of additional external electronics.