The GummiArm Project: A Replicable and Variable-Stiffness Robot Arm for Experiments on Embodied AI.

Robots used in research on Embodied AI often need to physically explore the world, to fail in the process, and to develop from such experiences. Most research robots are unfortunately too stiff to safely absorb impacts, too expensive to repair if broken repeatedly, and are never operated without the red kill-switch prominently displayed. The GummiArm Project was intended to be an open-source "soft" robot arm with human-inspired tendon actuation, sufficient dexterity for simple manipulation tasks, and with an eye on enabling easy replication of robotics experiments.