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Funky Robotic Hand
seldo writes "The BBC is carrying a story about a funky-looking robotic hand with the full range of 24 hand movements (NASA's best effort so far has 12, apparently). It's supposed to be for the disabled, although a spokesman for the British Council of Disabled People points out that everyday tasks are not really what the disabled need help with anymore. I just want one to play with :-)" Update: 08/08 17:58 GMT by T : You may be reminded of the DIY robot head from several months ago -- a perfect match?
Finally, I can use both hands to browse the net! We'll just have to see how life-like skin they can create...
I can build my haptic feedback arm-wrestling simulator.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
OK, back when I was about 8-10 years old (can't remember exactly), I got obsessed about building a robot. It simply had to be done, and I pestered my father (an electronics engineer) mercilessly about it. He tried to explain that it was just NOT a simple project, but I wouldn't listen.
Finally, I wore him down, and "we" (meaning him, and I watched) built a robotic hand. It was actually pretty clever, considering the primitiveness of it. The thumb, index finger and middle fingers were completed before I FINALLY lost interest and saw that it wasn't as easy as I thought.
He basically used some steel pipe that he filed into joints, and used springs to return the fingers to the outstretched position. A cable running through the pipe connected to the end of the finger tips caused them to contract.
Unfortunately, the middle finger broke off at one point, and has been lost. For the first time on the web, here are some pictures. It was made a little under 30 years ago or so. I should have taken a picture of the fingers contracted, but I didn't think of it until now. Maybe I'll go back and add one. :)
My father died about 10 years ago, but this is one my most treasured possessions. It's a testament to the fact that he seldom blew me off when I was interested in something, and did his best to help me (and I probably deserved to be blown off for this request!)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
"Disabled people are quite clear that we need adequate support and personal assistance which is flexible.
:)
"This is not only to do the basic tasks, but also to do other, more sophisticated tasks, which are essential to our well being, such as getting out of the house, meeting new people and having genuine control over our daily living."
The problem with this quote is basically it's saying "Disabled people need slaves". Last I checked there's not a large pool of reliable, trustworthy people that want to become slaves. My grandpa has gone excessively senile and my grandma has to do everything for him. Now, I love my grandpa, but I'd never be able to stand having to be on call 24/7/52 whenever he needed anything. What these "gadgets" ARE good for is working towards the next best thing: independance. Being able to do everything you want to do under your own initiative instead of having someone else do it. Leaving the house and meeting friends when you want to, and not having to convince, or order, someone else to.
Lets face it, you can't manufacture human slaves. At least not in the US
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Translate this into plain english for those of us who never took physics?
Strength:
* Wrist : 1.5Nm
* Distal : 0.5 Nm (Fingers / Thumb)
* Proximal : 1.0 Nm (Fingers / Thumb)
Are we talking million $ man strength here or more like tinkertoy strength?
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Supposing that one of my hands was missing one of these might be a nice thing to have for everyday applications, but why are we limiting ourselves to emulating biology? why not take our bodies in a drastically different direction? All those nerve endings that used to control the dexterous muscles in a hand could be used for more than just controling a new hand, given a little practise. Back to supposing my hand was missing, I spend a great deal of time typing every day, I'm sure there are more than enough nerve signals flowing through my wrists to create every character on a standard keyboard, but there would need to be an intermediate interpretation/conversion device. With such a device I could keep one hand on the mouse while typing at full speed. Disablity becomes advantage.