Past winners

Year 2020

First Place - "LaparoVision: An In Vivo Laparoscopic Wiper Mechanism," Jacob Sheffield, Amanda Lytle and Jake Hunter, Brigham Young University

Over the past hundred years, surgeons have performed millions of laparoscopic surgeries on humans. During most of these laparoscopic surgeries, the laparoscope must be removed several times from the patient's body for the lens to be cleaned. This common practice is not only costly in terms of time and money but can be dangerous to the patient. Several scientists, doctors, and entrepreneurs have tried to develop solutions to this problem; however, relatively few products are on the market while even fewer are being used by surgeons today. The purpose of this project is to develop and present the benefits of a fully compliant, laparoscopic lens cleaner. Our design will be a minimal, disposable wiper mechanism that can be easily mounted to the end of a laparoscope. With simple actuation from without the body, our mechanism will clear blood, debris, and other splatter from the laparoscope lens in vivo. We believe that this small, injection-molded compliant wiper addition will save hospitals’ money, surgeons’ time, and patients’ bodies.

Second Place - "A Novel Design for a Cable-Driven Parallel Robot with Full-Circle End-Effector Rotations," Marceau Métillon, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

This project addresses the design and manufacturing of a Cable-Driven Parallel Robot with full-circle end-effector rotations. The motivation of this project is to design a Cable-Driven Parallel Robot that can carry a camera for applications such as surveillance, inspection or control. For such applications, it is important that the robot covers large workspaces both in translation and in rotation. In particular, we wish to achieve a large rotational workspace by actuating the robot using cable-loops. A top plate and a parallel spherical wrist compose the moving platform of the robot. The parallel spherical wrist concept relies on the Atlas1 platform principle. A end-effector is linked to the base of the wrist using a spherical joint. Three omniwheels are linked to the wrist base with revolute joints. The end-effector is a sphere actuated by the rotation of the omni-wheels. Cable loops remotely drive the end-effector in an overall 9-dof motion. During this project, a complete mechanical embodiment of the concept was realized allowing its experimental validation. Efforts were made to simplify the design in order to facilitate the manufacturing of a prototype. Finally the prototype was manufactured and assembled using the laboratory mechanical facilities and first motions were performed.

Third Place - "Tangent Four-Point Radiation: Liquid-Activated Doubly-Curved Shaping of Layered Flexible Membranes," Hunter Pruett, Brigham Young University

The mechanism is a laminate consisting of two water-permeable relatively inextensible membranes sandwiching a layer of superabsorbent polymer (SAP). When said laminate comes in contact with water, the laminate inflates per expansion of the SAP, creating a pillowing or tube-like shape, depending on the boundary connecting the membrane laminae. By imposing intermediate boundaries in the laminate, the laminate can achieve a number of interesting and useful shapes. Concentric boundaries result in an expansion that is analogous to the circular origami hypar. Concentric boundaries can be arranged such that the resulting expansion is analogous to Salkowski curves. The strategic arrangement and union of such Salkowski curves can produce an expansion that unifies two partial circular hypar shapes with a trough. Such an arrangement was used to create a diaper pad that reduces sag and improves shape conformance in diapers.

Year 2019

First Place - "Novel Pin Array Universal Grippers for Self-adaptation and Dense-contact Grasping”, An Mo, Jingwei Su, Chao Luo and Hong Fu, Tsinghua University

Conventional grippers are designed for specific applications. They often encounter difficulties when grasping different objects in unstructured environments. This paper introduces two pin array grippers to challenge the universal grasp capability. By studying the pin motion to build lateral contacts with object, translation and expansion of pin are found optimal. Based on the two motions, two pin array grippers are proposed accordingly. Concentric pin array gripper enhances versatility by orbital translation of pins. Meshed pin array gripper accomplishes high pin density by the novel non-circular pin section mechanism. Through analytical models, simulations and experiments, the feasibility of pin array grippers is validated.

Second Place - ​“A Self-Deployable Self-Stiffening and Retractable Space Structure (SDSR) Mechanism”, Nathan Pehrson and Sam Smith, Brigham Young University

Third Place - ​“Retractable Anti-Buckling Support Tube for Medical Robotics”, Brandon Sargent and Nathan Brown, Brigham Young University​

The Zipper Tube Reinforcement (ZTR) is a device used to mitigate buckling in long-slender devices commonly used in minimally invasive surgeries. The ZTR supports the device by creating a cylindrical tube that allows a higher compressive axial load before buckling during device insertion. The also ZTR utilizes a face-to-face zipper that enables the tube to be retracted, flattened, and wound onto a mandrel for storage.

First Place - ​“VGT ROBOT: A Novel Obstacle-avoiding Pipeline Robot with Variable Geometry Truss”, Wenxiang Zhao, Guojie Hua, Juewei He, Xiongbin, Tsinghua University

Pipeline robot is a kind of special robot, which is used in pipeline detection and maintenance for the petroleum, natural gas and other pipeline environment. The traditional pipe robot cannot adapt to the non-structural pipes with complicated and changeable section, and the ability to avoid obstacles is limited. This paper designed a novel obstacle-avoiding pipeline robot with variable geometry trusses, which can overcome those defects through its deformation characteristics. This robot’s structure is based on the configuration of variable geometry truss, which has the advantages of lightweight, high stiffness and modularity. High stiffness makes the robot adapt to complex working conditions, and truss structure makes full use of space to place instruments in it. Meanwhile modular design greatly improved the scalability of the robot, which ensures the robot a broad application prospect.

Second Place - ​“A Novel Worm-inspired Wall Climbing Robot with Sucker-microspine Composite Structure”, Wenhao Yang, Chengle Yang, Ruijie Zhang, Tsinghua University

In recent years, with the popularity of automation equipment, more and more work has been replaced by the advanced and convenient equipment. However, existing equipment tends to remain on the level of the ground work, and many uncomplicated vertical wall surface work. Therefore, in order to solve the difficult problems faced by the existing automation equipment commonly encountered on the wall, a large number of robots with wall climbing function have been designed and developed. However, their principles are often not mature, and the performance is difficult to meet large-scale applications. For example, existing wheeled robots are very noisy and have insufficient load capacity which can only be equipped with light weight devices. Others use microscopic viscous materials or magnetic materials to complete the adsorption of climbing wall robots while the charge energy reaches kilograms per square. However, the performance is affected by the wall material, and only works on smooth surfaces. At the same time, due to the adsorption force of the foot that lifts itself when the robot climbs, even if the suction force is reduced by the methods of cutting and lifting, the body still has to bear a large internal force, causing serious jitter during the operation.

Third Place - ​“DSCL Hand: A Novel Linear Parallel and Self-adaptive Underactuated Robot Hand”, Xiaofeng Guo, Yunwei Xiang, Hu Yan, Tsinghua University

A novel linear parallel and self- adaptive underactuated robot hand, called DSCL Hand. Targeting for objects of different sizes, shapes and poses, DSCL Hand achieves two grasp modes with only one actuator: 1) linear parallel pinch for precise grasping; 2) self-adaptive grasp for firm grasping. Particular attention is given to the linear parallel pinching mode, where the trajectory of fingertip is a straight line. It is important for precise grasping and realized by the novel double slider co-circular linkage mechanisms. The switch of grasping modes is mechanically automatic without complex sensors or control. Kinematics analysis, grasping force analysis, motion simulation and prototype experiments verify the versatility of the proposed DSCL Hand.