Bachelor Assignment

The aim of this project was to develop and design a specialized End of Arm Tooling (gripper) that can take flat, plastic and relatively small products out of the injection moulding machine of the University of Twente (the BOY-22E). In order to assist in over-moulding and situations where the sprue does not stay/is not connected to the products, the gripper could not simply clamp the sprue. During the process various options were researched and discussed, from artificial gecko-inspired adhesives to hybrid servo-electric and vacuum grippers. The research, alongside conceptualization, prototyping and testing resulted into a good and stable basis for a versatile vacuum gripper, together with a lot of suggestions for future development.