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Soft robotics · Interaction design · 2025
CUSP
A soft wearable that lets two people hold hands from a distance.
CONTEXTMaster Digital Design, Hogeschool van Amsterdam
TEAMMehmet Bostanci, Courteney Rademaker, Vera Karulina, Lilly Badrnia
MY ROLEUX Research,
Project management
Project management
MATERIALSHeat-sealed TPU, fabric sleeve, pump, valve, pressure sensor
01 — The brief
Social platforms connect us through screens. We asked what it would take to feel someone’s presence instead: touch, closeness, a hand to hold.
02 — Learning soft robotics
Researcher Harm van Vugt introduced us to heat-sealed TPU actuators and shared his teaching material. It changed our direction, from something large like a blanket to a device the size of a hand.
Following his process, we cut TPU shapes, sealed them with baking paper and a heat press, and inflated them by hand. The green actuator was one of the first that bent the way we intended.
03 — Shaping the touch
Designed to press where a hand would.
We placed the inflatable’s inner chambers on the points that matter when someone holds your hand, like the centre of the palm. Every layout was tested on paper and on our own hands before it was sealed.
04 — Hardware
Mehmet led the hardware. We took apart a blood-pressure monitor and repurposed its pump and valve to control the airflow, then tested the device on people, tuning pressure, timing and responsiveness from what they told us.
05 — Final design
Subtle, intimate, human.
A TPU inflatable inside a soft fabric sleeve. When your partner presses their paired unit, yours gently inflates against your palm, recreating the feeling of holding their hand, wherever they are.
Let’s connect: verakarulina1@gmail.com