October 10, 2013

Build a glove-controlled robotic hand with Arduino

At first glance, the idea of making a robotic hand that can mimic the movements of its human master may seem like a simple example of science fiction. However with recent advances in home 3D printing and our Arduino boards you can bring these fictional ideas into solid reality. Demonstrated by Instructables user "dschurman", the system consists of three elements.

First, a glove is fitted with flexible sensors in each finger that can return a value depending on the distance each finger or thumb is curled. The second element is a 3D-printed hand which contains five servos, each connected to a string and the end of the five matching digits. The final element is the Arduino which interprets the flexible sensor data and uses it to control the servos - which in turn mimic the user's real hand. A quick demonstration can be seen in the following video:

Apart from the fun aspect of this project, it could become the base for all sorts of remote-control human extensions or help the differently-abled. For more details, visit the project page. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.

Have you been reading about Arduino, servos and projects like the hand above, but not sure where to start? Then order one our Experimenter's Kit for Arduino:

The package includes a wide variety of parts, sensors and modules including: a servo motor, lights, buttons, switches, sound, sensors, breadboard, wires and more. Furthermore a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to make this an extensive hobby experimenter, inventor and starter kit. However we don't leave you alone to figure it all out, included is a great project and instruction booklet, plus access to a supporting web page and software examples. In other words - this is everything you need to get started for a fun range of electronics and Arduino related projects! So to get started or for more information and to order, check out the product page.

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