"Science Visions" video series: episode 2 – smart materials for soft robots

My science vision is to develop a new class of soft, skin friendly materials. These materials are conductive and pave the way for smart applications such as new medical robots or intelligent wearables.
So material scientists can design new materials based on chemistry and physics knowledge. My material is the conductive hydrogel. My hydrogel can be electrically conductive and ionically conductive, and also responsive to humidity change. The most important characteristic of hydrogel is that it has very similar properties as human body components, such as skin or tissue.

New applications that these soft materials can be used for are, for example, soft wearable devices or exoskeletons. They can also be used in medical fields as minimally invasive devices. If we go to the bigger scale, then it can be used for support for walking, movement of the joints or muscles. The patients can benefit from the comfortable feeling from the material itself, because whenever they have to wear some devices for a long time due to their health issues, those devices need to feel like they're part of the body.

When people build soft robots, they need a few different components to achieve the electric conductivity and different properties. What I try to achieve: To put these functionalities in one material. Thereby I want to decrease the number of components that are needed to build a robot.

The research conditions – or environment -  in Germany and South Korea is very different. In South Korea, we say it's vertical culture, here I felt that it is more of a horizontal culture. I found out it's very easy to talk with professors. Professors are also very open to exchange or my opinions. After I finished my bachelor's degree in South Korea, I pursued a master's degree outside of Korea, and I looked for universities in Germany.

I found there is a so-called TU9, which are the leading technology institutes in Germany. So I thought it would be a great chance to experience education and life in one of the TU9 universities. And as an international student, University of Stuttgart offered a variety of English programs.

So, there was no need to be perfect in German before I came to study here. When I traveled around Germany, I found out Stuttgart is a very safe city and generally it's very, very beautiful, especially when the weather is nice. My favorite German food is “Kässpätzle“. It´s on the menu in Mensa today - do you want to go?