is a graduate student in the Mechanical Engineering Department at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, seeking an MS in Mechanical Engineering with an emphasis in Mechatronic Systems. His research covers multiple fields including compact data acquisition systems, robotics, Machine Learning, and vibrational systems. He has conducted research under Dr. O'Malley with cooperation with Sandia National Laboratories on designing low cost, compact data acquisition systems for rockets. These systems were required to perform on a par with far more expensive, larger systems.

In this paper, a novel snake like robot design is presented and analyzed. The structure described desires to obtain a robot that is most like a snake found in nature. This is achieved with the combination of both rigid and soft link structures by implementing a 3D printed rigid link and a soft cast silicone skin. The proposed structure serves to have a few mechanical improvements while maintaining the positives of previous designs. The implementation of the silicone skin presents the opportunity to use synthetic scales and directional friction. The design modifications of this novel design are analyzed on the fronts of the kinematics and minimizing power loss. Minimization of power loss is done through a numerical minimization of three separate parameters with the smallest positive power loss being used. This results in the minimal power loss per unit distance. This research found that the novel structure presented can be effectively described and modeled, such that they could be applied to a constructed model.