Mechanical Metamaterial Twist Structure

February 2018

The initial design was published in an article by Frenzel, Kadic, and Wegener called, “Three-dimensional mechanical metamaterials with a twist” (2017). Unlike most materials, this structure naturally produces a torque when a downward force is applied.

We will attempt to replace the joint-arms with artificial muscles in order to initiate a twisting motion to add to the current repertoire of artificial muscle movements.

As a member of CSU’s Soft Robotics Lab, I was tasked with bringing the design of a mechanical meta-material component into SolidWorks to be 3D printed and later edited.

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The above cube was 3D printed at the CSU 3D printing lab, and it represents the first physical prototype of the original concept image.