Design strength and weakness
Strength
The main strength of the soft robotic hand is structural integrity and stability. Mechanical property mismatch between soft body and rigid electronic components often causes stress concentration, but since the soft robotic hand contains a 3D printed circuit instead of electronic wires these problems are prevented.
Another major strength of the robotic hand is the aesthetics. Due the absence of rigid electric wires on the robot's external surface, the overall structure more closely resembles a child's hand. Overcoming the issue of integrating the two layers (see Troubleshooting - 2. Integration of layers) also contributed to making a more elegant looking human hand, because it meant no adhesive material had to be plastered in between both layers, which previously led to uneven surfaces and air leakages.
Weakness
One major weakness of the soft robotic hand is that the design does not support intricate movements, such as playing the piano or writing words using a pencil. The most the hand can do is grab objects up and down.
Another major weakness is that the lighting of LEDs is not synchronized with the fingers' motion, which was another goal of this project. If we were to do another iteration, our team would have added the function of lighting up the LEDs based on fingers' movements.