We aim to design a waterproof jellyfish robot that mimics the natural movement of a jellyfish by using laminate manufacturing techniques and tools provided by the popupCAD program. 

 

   The inspiration for this design came from nature. The Jellyfish is known to swim using jet propulsion. This simplistic and  energy efficient method interested our team to mimic this animal. We foresee applications of our project in areas of research in marine life, search, surveilance or simply entertainement(e.g a toy).

 

   Observing how a jellyfish swims, we noticed that the miura origami pattern, with its impressive tesselation, can emulate the propulsion mechanism of the jellyfish if actuated. However, after some prototype iterations we noticed some challenges to apply this design concept (see checkpoints for more info). Instead, we decided to use a simpler but more powerful approach to mimic the jellyfish motion. We applied the Sarrus linkage mechanism concept which allows waterproof actuation to become simpler and enabled an opportunity to use different tools and layers on popupCAD.

 

        For more details about the evolution of our project as well as our results, please check the links on the left. Also, if you have any questions, please click on the contact tab above, we would be more than happy to answer them.