Make a hand with fingers
that work like like real fingers.Make a hand with fingers
that work like like real fingers.If you click here you can see short movies of the robot hand actually working.
You can make this robot hand point, grab, and make the peace sign. It's so real in its finger movements that it's almost creepy. Indeed, I get requests to borrow it around halloween. But this project had a pretty serious origin.
I could not lift a finger. I couldn't wiggle my toes. In three days I had gone from perfect health to being paralyzed below my neck. I had been stricken with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a neurological condition.
I missed my hands the most. I know there's an expression about being so familiar with something that I "know it like the back of my hand." But I discovered that for all I depended of them, I didn't understand my hands at all. It wasn't until I lost the use of them that I began to contemplate and appreciate them.
How can it be that we can grab onto a bar and suspend all of our weight with the same fingers that can type on a keyboard or speak with sign language? Strings! Those big, strong muscles for our fingers are actually out of the way in our forearms. They transmit power to the slender bones in our fingers with strings. What ingenious design! The robot hand we will make doesn't just look kind of real, it works real, the way our real hands work.
I recovered most of my movement over a period of about three years. And as you can see from this site, I love to use my hands to make things more than ever. This science project, though very simplified, is a way to understanding how real hands work and appreciating them without going through some ordeal. It's my tribute to the great Designer /Creator of our hands.
P.S. The strings in our body which connect muscle to bones are called "tendons."
INSTRUCTIONS
For illustrated instructions for the
robot hand click here or on the picture. |
MORE ABOUT HANDS AND FINGERS
For explanations, activities and cool links related to hands
and fingers click here or on the picture. |
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