Successful Demo of the Tensegrity Rapid Prototyping Kit at NASA Headquarters

The NASA Ames SUPERball Tensegrity Tensegrity project was the first team to ever bring and operate a robot during a review session at NASA Headquarters (9-26-2014) under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. The robot was none other than the UC Berkeley BEST (Berkeley Emergent Space Tensegrities) Rapid Prototyping Kit. To demonstrate that the concept could be packed into tight space travel, our robot was carried by Adrian Agogino in a suitcase in packed luggage on his flight to D.C.  Our kit was also demonstrated at DARPA headquarters. They had to collapse it partially to fit through the X-ray machine, demonstrating that our quick release rod ends were fast and easy to operate.

NIACJason E. Derleth, Jay Falker and Ron Turner (NASA HQ)

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A video of the UC Berkeley part of the research was also featured with BEST lab members describing their contributions to the research. Check out our new YouTube channel addition.

Feature photo captions: Vytas SunSpiral and Adrian Agogino (NASA Ames)
and Ron Turner (NASA HQ)at NASA Headquarters.