Srivatsan Balaji
Research Engineer / Faculty Research Assistant
Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CoRIS) Institute, Oregon State University
Interests: Soft and Materials Robotics
I was a Research Engineer in the Intelligent Machines and Materials Lab, part of Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CoRIS) Institute at Oregon State University. I developed hardware for integrating flexible electronics to underwater robots. My work sits at the intersection of mechanical design, robotics, and materials.
I hold a Master of Science (MS) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, where my work focused on materials robotics. I completed my bachelor’s degree (B.Tech.) in Chemical Engineering at SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India.
Outside of work, I am a virtual pilot and hobbyist photographer.
Skills
Mechanical Design & CAD
CAD Modeling: SolidWorks and Autodesk Fusion 360 for designing soft robotic systems, end effectors, and mechanical metamaterials. I have some experience with Autodesk Inventor.
Additive Manufacturing
FDM Printing: Prusa printers for rapid prototyping of gripper fingers and structural components.
Stereolithography: Printing auxetic materials using the Carbon M1 3D printer for high-resolution parts requiring fine detail.
Material Jetting: Stratasys J750 for multi-material 3D printing.
Silicone Casting: Creating molds and elastomer components to fabricate soft robots.
Simulation & Analysis
FEA: Ansys Mechanical for structural analysis for soft actuators, including parametric design studies.
CFD: Ansys Fluent for fundamental fluid flow and heat transfer analysis in packed bed columns and microchannels.
Material Testing: Instron Universal Testing System for characterizing auxetic metamaterials, and estimating mechanical properties using ASTM’s standard testing procedure.
Programming
MATLAB: Data processing and visualization,
Python: Building visualization tools for robotics feedback.
Research Communication
Experiment Design · Scientific and Technical writing · Presentation