Controlling Autonomously Snapping Soft Matter

Soft materials systems are commonly used by nature to garner energy from the environment to accomplish powerful tasks autonomously. While soft actuators have been widely explored for the past several decades by engineers and materials scientists, the ability to mediate environmental interactions for repeated, high power tasks has only been explored to a limited extent. Here, we describe recent efforts to understand how materials properties and geometry trade-off to control power generated in single and repeated events of an autonomously snapping structure. We experimentally explore the balance of internal transport and elastic energy storage properties of the polymer networks used to define the structures and develop quantitative design guidelines for controlling power output. We extend this understanding and combine it with recent advances in LAtch Mediated Spring Actuation (LAMSA), which is used by many of the most powerful natural organisms, to demonstrate novel multi-latch systems that can amplify performance and control. The strategies and results discussed provide new insight into how materials properties can combine with purposeful structural design to achieve complex, energy-efficient tasks, which can be used in the development of microscale robots.