Episode Twenty-Seven: Simon Wanstall
Simon Wanstall, a PhD student at the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and R&D engineer at TouchLab, discusses his work on soft robotic prosthetics and bio-inspired design. He explains how current myoelectric arms are heavy and slow due to hard materials, and details his development of rapid-manufacture strain sensors using laser-etched graphene and silicone to improve sensory feedback. Wanstall also describes Wayne, a bio-inspired soft robot inspired by ragworms, and his industrial placement at TouchLab creating e-skin technologies like the Eidermis and triaxial shear sensors for hazardous environment robotics.