Fluid circulation is ubiquitous in both living creatures and machines, and it serves multiple functions: temperature regulation, transport of nutrients, mechanical actuation. A beating heart is a soft pump that keeps animal alive through blood circulation. ROBOFLUID will merge fluids capabilities with electrical control to equip robots and wearables with the superpowers of fluids. By untangling the interaction between intense electric fields and fluid mechanics, ROBOFLUID will develop a new class of solid-state fluidic devices where flow is directly driven in situ by electrical signals, and where fluid velocity, pressure and temperature are used to sense the device status and the environment. The large number of components required to operate conventional fluidics (pumps, valves, tubing, plugs), have prevented its use in untethered systems. ROBOFLUID will overcome this limitation by means of solid-state pumps where fluids are directly accelerated by electric fields. Similarly, to robotic hearts, robotic fluids will drive (1) new strong and robust artificial muscles, (2) wearable coolers and (3) active textiles for movement support and haptics. ROBOFLUID will leverage our experience with soft robotics, electroactive materials and solid-state pumping based on Electrohydrodynamics (EHD). By bringing these fields together and bridging them with emerging active fibers technologies for wearables, we aim to create new scientific understanding of fluid mechanics and field emission in liquids under high electric fields and to create new ground-breaking functionalities for robots and wearables. We will create (1) robust, high-power-density fluidic muscles that will make low-cost dexterous robotic hands possible, (2) wearable coolers to reduce energy consumption from air conditioning and to protect fragile people during extreme heat waves, (3) textile artificial muscles to facilitate daily actions in the elderly and to enable remote physical interactions.

Macroscopic adhesion is of utmost importance in key technologies such as soft and climbing robots, aerospace grasping technologies, human-robot interactions, pick-and-place manipulators. Commonly, bioinspired adhesives interfaces have been characterized from a quasi-static perspective, neglecting the effect of dynamic excitations. Nevertheless, recent observations suggest that added micro-vibrations may be exploited to strongly enhance and rapidly tune macroscopic adhesion. By exploiting the multiplicative coupling between geometric- and viscoelastic vibration-induced enhancements of macroscopic adhesion, SURFACE aims at designing future soft interfaces with unprecedented and tuneable adhesion strength. To this end, I aim to: (i) develop highly efficient numerical tools for studying adhesion of patterned soft surfaces under micro-vibration excitation, (ii) unveil the coupling effect between topography and viscoelasticity that determine the interfacial strength and toughness (iii) design optimal surface topography and excitation for macroscopic adhesion tuning, by exploiting artificial intelligence models to unveil new mechanisms for adhesion enhancement, (iv) prove the adhesive performance reached, by experimentally testing high-resolution 3D printed interfaces with the desired topography and superposed micro-vibrations. So far, the adhesive performance of bioinspired patterned interfaces has been limited by manufacturing capabilities at the micro/nanoscale. SURFACE ground-breaking approach aims at exploiting dynamics excitation to outperform state-of-the-art adhesive interfaces. By exploiting artificial intelligence models, SURFACE aims at revealing new mechanisms for adhesion enhancement, which lay beyond our intuition. Rapidly tuneable strong adhesive interfaces have the potential to revolutionize cutting-edge technologies based on soft adhesive interfaces that require to move and place objects quickly and with accuracy.

The main goal is to enable schools, in particular teachers, parents and pupils, to participate in high quality citizen science projects in both curricular and extracurricular contexts. Citizen Science (CS) has raised a lot of attention in the last years. Its main goal is to involve citizens in different types of science projects, in particular to 1) improve engagement and 2) to increase research capacities, e.g. by shared data collection. Many projects have incorporated citizen science approaches. Whereas citizen science works well for educational purposes (e.g. in inquiry-based science education), the acceptance of CS on a scientific level ranges from low to questionable. Even though the European Association for Citizen Science has clear guidelines and support mechanisms, many CS projects are not taken seriously. This is the main starting point for the FabCitizen project: We aim at providing tools to increase the quality of CS projects, in particular in schools. For this purpose, we will integrate FabLabs as the main educational environment as they can provide both, technological as well as methodological expertise. We base our project on clearly defined requirements, amongst them●In schools, CS projects need to be embedded in the curriculum●To ease the implementation, teachers need high quality (open) scenarios and learning materials ●CS projects need support in terms of methodological and technological expertise.In the project, we will achieve the following main results: ●A Citizen Science competency framework describing knowledge, skills and attitudes to successfully engage in high quality CS projects incorporating the key skill of data handling (such analytics, security, ethics)●A pedagogical concept incorporating aspects of inquiry and service learning ●A guide for FabLabs as the key infrastructure to educate and train schools and citizens. ●At least 200 Open learning scenarios to train teachers, pupils and parents in early secondary school●A collection of Open Educational Resources supporting the approach●A good practice guide for schools and FabLabs across EuropeThe project will provide guidance and concrete support to universities, FabLabs, schools and the surrounding communities to participate in successful, high quality CS projects. As part of our trials, we will initiate around 100 CS projects. In the long run, we create new methods and materials for broader engagement and quality improvement in CS.