Congratulations to Mr. Hailin Sun, Ph.D. student of Prof. Guoxin Fang, on receiving the Best Fabrication Award at the 9th IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft 2026)!

Awardees:

Hailin Sun (Ph.D. student, Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, CUHK)
Yingjun Tian (Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Manchester)
Chenyu Xu (Ph.D. student, Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, CUHK)
Mahdi Bodaghi (Associate Professor, Nottingham Trent University)
Fei Gao (Professor, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Guoxin Fang (Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, CUHK)

Project Title: Robot-Assisted Multi-Axis Embedded Silicone Printing for Free-Form Volumetric Model

Project Description:
The team proposed a multi-axis embedded silicone printing strategy for the manufacturing of free-form volumetric models. Through the embedded printing method, it effectively overcame the limitations of conventional manufacturing for complex structures, achieving the integrated forming of free-form three-dimensional shapes. At the same time, with the additional degrees of freedom provided by the multi-axis system and the refined printing trajectory design, the filling density and surface quality were significantly improved, enabling an innovative solution for the integrated manufacturing of high-performance soft structures.

Physical experiment setup of multi-axis embedded silicone printing

Printed soft robot models
(a) printing process with robot-assisted ESP; (b) Longitudinal cross-section of s-shaped soft robot and its inflated shape; (c) inflated twisting-type and (d) L-shaped soft robots; all three robots were fabricated from Ecoflex 00-30 but with different internal designs. (e) Deformation of the S-shaped soft robot made from Mold Star 30 under different pressures; and (f) Deformation of S-shaped soft robots made from Dragon Skin 10 (left) and Mold Star 30 (right) under the same pressure.

Printed aorta models
(a) Printing process with robot-assisted ESP (b) Printing result