Experiments with the Soft Cell Simulator

During my work at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, EPFL with Prof. Dario Floreano and Dr. Joshua Auerbach, I looked at the design of mechanical structures constructed out of soft materials. I performed simulations using the soft-cell simulator developed in the lab to study if softness gives a mechanical advantage in the design of engineering structures. I looked at two problems - a soft support structure (top image) and the locomotion of a soft body through a constriction (bottom image).