The Kraken - A Kerbal nemesis

thingiverse

Kraken - A Kerbal Nemesis ==================== *Developed to submit to #e3dflexibles2021 design contest. Thanks for the contest E3d!* **What the heck is this?** --------------------- A flexible **KSP Kraken** based on inspiration from the KSP deltaV subway map (found here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/87463-173-community-delta-v-map-27/) There are several STLs here for your Kraken pleasure. **Kraken - Basic** --------------------- A beginner Kraken, for the faint of heart. *(no shame, I printed this one too!)* The one that we can print even with our Ender 3's. This Kraken is suited for PLA or a flexible filament. **Kraken - Wire** --------------------- For your "hug em and never let go" enjoyment, this design has space for bent wires to be inserted in the first few millimeters of the print. Set up your printing profile to pause at a suitable layer to insert wires. **Kraken - Suction** --------------------- A suction design *warning undergoing testing!* There s a cavity within this Kraken where the air can be squeezed out and, in theory, crate a suction to really hold on to those blasted kerbonauts, or your fridge door. *note:* Also works as a squirt gun! **Kraken Pneumatic Grabber Test Specimin Alpha** --------------------- This his hard mode, definitely not for the faint of heart, realism overhaul, "Hullo, I'm Scott Manley!", version. This is the long term flexible material goal with this project, a soft actuated Kraken. Designed with pneumatic air sacks in the arms that actuate a hugging motion when squeezing the head! (Soft robotic inspiration for this design: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bertoldi/files/advancedfunctionalmaterials_bobak.pdf). **What's happening now:** --------------------- I have designed a simplified pneumatic arm attached to a simplified head for testing. Three tests so far have shown me the difficulty in printing TPE with an ender bowden setup. It is important for me to keep the wall thickness to a minimum on the arm air sacks to locally maximize flexibility between sacks and still maintain air-tightness. So far my failures are in optimizing the printer tuning to keep the model airtight. As stated in the Harvard paper, they printed a form and molded silicone for the soft actuators. I probably should do that too, but I am determined to work with FDM flexible filament to see how far I can take it. Currently I am unsuccessful in creating an airtight body with thin enough air sacks, or flexible enough thick air sacks. I foresee several options. a. I am currently using 82A shore hardness TPE. I could perhaps use a material with a lower shore hardness/easier flexibility. This will require different printer hardware as I find myself already near the limits of the stock Ender 3. b. Print thicker walls and enlarge the chambers. I have begun iterating on this idea. I hypothesize the thicker walls should give me more leeway in dealing with he poor print quality/help with airtightness, and the larger chambers to give more flex where its needed. Happy flexing! /printornaut