Setex Grip Tape

Our concept design incorporates setae—microscopic hairs found on the bottoms of geckos feet. These hairs, when pressed against a surface, split into thousands of even tinier hairs called spatulae; this splitting permits the geckos’ feet to maximize surface area on whatever surface it is touching, which enables it to stick to almost any surface. Setae are so strong that they can resist normal strain of up to seven hundred pounds, but when peeled vertically, come undone with ease. This makes them an optimum method to fasten one end of an elastic band to the other. Ideally, if we had the ability to produce our solution with unrestricted materials and machinery, a nanostructure mimicking setae would be etched directly onto the surface of an elastic band. This would likely be done through laser lithography: a process in which a laser is utilized to create extremely small patterns on the surface of a material. This would cover the entirety of our elastic band in a nanostructure, allowing it to stick to itself at any point, therefore maximizing its strength, adjustability, and functionality. However, due to limitations, our current design is not able to feature a setae structure along the entirety of its length. For this reason, our design features increments of the Setex, a nano-structured adhesive mimicking setae, along the length of the band. This permits the design to still be adjustable, as the band can form a strong attachment with itself at different lengths that will not break under the stress of users.

Setex nanostructure

Attachment Method: Duct tape + Sewing

One of the major problems we have encountered during our design process is difficulty attaching Setex grip tape to the silicone therapy bands (see Design Limitations for more detailed information). After our series of test runs on how to solve this problem (see Design Process for more detailed information), we came upon a solution: combine the ideas of duct tape adhesion and sewing. Although duct tape sticks relatively well to the therapy band compared to all the other methods we have tried, we still wanted to enforce the adhesion, which we accomplished that by sewing. First, we sewed strips of duct tape onto the therapy band along incremented intervals along the band. Then, we adhered the regular tape side of the Setex onto the duct tape. This method ensures a strong attachment of the Setex to the therapy band.