From my early childhood, I've been curious and fascinated with mechanisms and electric circuits. A few electric shocks and a couple of burns later I completed a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Production and Project from the University of Coimbra in 2021, with a thesis entitled "Force/Proximity Hybrid Sensors and Phase Change Actuators" classified with 20 values. Throughout my degree, I had the opportunity to attend several conferences, courses and workshops, both national and international, on engineering-related topics ranging from technology transfer and entrepreneurship to material sciences and soft robotics. I've also studied at Politecnico di Torino (Turin, Italy) as an international exchange student, where I had the opportunity to work alongside students from different cultures and scientific backgrounds. My scientific interests focus mainly on Automation and Robotics, specifically on malleable devices and systems (a research field known as Soft Robotics). As an assistant researcher at the University of Coimbra's Collaborative Robotics Laboratory, I have worked on three different projects, where I was responsible for leading the design and manufacturing of sensors for human-robot collaboration, electrically powered soft robotic actuators as well as all the complementary control and testing systems. These allowed me to develop a solid theoretical and practical background in soft robotics, with several working prototypes having been developed and successfully applied in real-world demonstrations. This work resulted in one scientific paper on flexible sensors, published in an international journal (IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics). A second paper is currently being prepared, awaiting the completion of a semi-soft robot demonstrator, powered by the aforementioned soft robotic actuators. By invitation, this work was presented in a speech regarding soft robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's CSAIL Labs (MA, USA).