2.009 Product Engineering Processes · 2021

ReVise: A Granular-Jamming Vise

role: Led the vise-body task force; team CAD, renders, and product graphics
team: Team of 20
Stack: Fusion 360Waterjet cuttingWelding

Ordinary vises crush or slip on irregular parts. ReVise grips them with pneumatically jammed pouches that conform to a workpiece and then lock in shape, spreading the clamping force gently enough to hold a raw egg without cracking it.

A standard vise holds a part through two flat jaws, so irregular or delicate workpieces end up gripped at a few points, where they slip or get damaged. In 2.009 Product Engineering Processes, MIT’s capstone product design class, our 20-person team set out to build a vise that could hold any shape firmly without marring it. Our answer was granular jamming: a pouch filled with loose grains conforms to whatever it is pressed against, and when the pneumatic system jams the grains together, the pouch locks into that shape. Clamping force is then spread over the whole contact area rather than concentrated at a few points.

Two CAD renders: on the left, pink jamming pouches mounted on a standard bench vise with a separate air compressor and pink control box; on the right, the final integrated dark grey vise with pink pouches, a handwheel, and a built-in control panel. — From concept to product: an early CAD concept with jamming pouches on a standard vise and an external compressor (left), and the final design with the pneumatic system built into the vise body (right).

We worked through the course’s cycle of “Ideate. Model. Test. Repeat.” over several prototypes, moving from pouches added to an off-the-shelf vise to a self-contained product. I led the task force responsible for the vise body, which we designed around waterjet-cut steel plates welded together to house the pneumatic system and carry clamping loads. The final design pairs two removable, conformable pouches with a spring-loaded jaw that keeps them in contact, a self-regulated pneumatic system inside the body, and a control for fast actuation.

Exploded render of the ReVise vise with labels: rapid onset actuation, spring-loaded jaw to ensure contact, conformable pouches, and self-regulated pneumatic system. — Exploded view of the final design, from the product sheet I designed.

I also built and maintained the team’s master CAD assembly and produced its renders, animations, brochure, posters, and presentation slides. We presented ReVise to an audience in Kresge Auditorium in December 2021 and demonstrated it by clamping a raw egg without cracking its shell. The business case priced the vise at $450 with replacement pouches at $20 for a two-pack, aimed at roughly 100,000 workshops in the US.

The pouches are a wear part, which is why the business case includes replacement packs. The presentation recording is linked above, and ReVise begins at 2:18:38. The CAD models are viewable online, from the initial prototype and mockup to the final fabrication model and final rendering model.