Would you like a HAND?

[MYKL]

*Deep Bow*

Hello friends,

I was introduced (in a way) to this place by HIVEMIND.

I am working on a new robotic gripper.

I am going to attemt to place some photos here of my prototype gripper.

I took the pictures with my cell phone so they are mediocre at best.

I hope you get an Idea what my goal is though...

^_^









As you can see taking a picture with the cell while trying to hold the control cables was not the best way to have a clean photo. I plan to take much clearer pictures with a camera when I make a more substantial model. This one is constructed from balsa, plummers putty, and chewing gum...

Tell me what you think. I know the servos aren't shown but that will come later. ^_^

Would you put something like this on your robot?

[hivemind]

Welcome to the forums MYKL.

I am glad to see that you have joined us, your hand looks very nice.

I could be wrong, but I have a guess as to how this (and your final version) will work. I know you had mentioned to me that you planned to make this out of plastic, so I presume that you would have a hard plastic body hand, and that each joint would be a hard plastic? You would also need a soft plastic section between each harder joint so they could bend. And then the wire, when pulled, would bend each finger-the soft plastic sections between the joints? You could line the wires up in the rest of the body so they would stay tight.

And then you could use five small servos with high torque for each finger. I do not think that the MR C-3024 board can handle that (just do to a lack of servo inputs), so you would need to group the finger accordingly. But any board with servos cable of daisy chain could certainly use this, and what an advantage it would be. Wow.

Amazing that you could get it this small of scale. I am curious, how tough will the plastic be with a finished model? And also, how to plan on connecting it to a robot arm (probably just screw holes?).

To answer your question, I for one would certianly use this design or one very simlar. The fully articulate fingers, as long as they are strong enough, are a great advantage.

Your idea and design looks awesome, keep up the great work

[MYKL]

Thank you sir and well met,

I plan on using the lightest materials possable.

The joints will probably be made of a fiber rubber composite.

The servos will be located remotely. It will be left up to personal choice how many digits are contected to each servo. And the power will be transmitted through small cables like the brakes on a bicycle. The force required to move the digits on this prototype is minimal. The force requirement in a finished assembly should be even less.

The final piece/kit will be more compact than this one. It will more closely resemble a 'mecha' style hand. I hope that it will find its way into/onto more than just the RN-1.

^_^

[RedFoxDude]

Thats a cool hand! It kinda looks like a hand from a Gundam. I think it would be cool to have a small one on my KHR-2HV. then it would be able to hold things and throw things and do all kinds of cool stuff.

Red

[spin_cycle]

that has to be the most incedible looking and functioning hand of that size, it reminds me alot of the hand from shadow robotics which also wirks on a pulley system. i would definently stick that on my robot if i could figure how to mount it properly.

[Bullit]

Yeah the shadow robot hand is very cool. It uses air muscles.
http://www.shadowrobot.com/hand/overview.shtml

[MYKL]

RedFoxDude Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:02 pm Post subject:

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Thats a cool hand! It kinda looks like a hand from a Gundam. I think it would be cool to have a small one on my KHR-2HV. then it would be able to hold things and throw things and do all kinds of cool stuff.

Red

Hello,

Mecha are a muse to me. Especially the ones with a man-machine interface. I plan on creating my own Appleseed style 'Landmate' some day. 'Till then I will work on the micro 'bot stuff. I am rather proud of the size and the functionality of this gripper. I will post the Solidworks renderings of Ver 00 When they are completed.

^_^

spin_cycle Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 11:13 pm Post subject: wow

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that has to be the most incedible looking and functioning hand of that size, it reminds me alot of the hand from shadow robotics which also wirks on a pulley system. i would definently stick that on my robot if i could figure how to mount it properly.

*Deep Bow*

Thank you for the Kudos friend. The size of this is where I think it excells too. It will be strong for its size/wieght. The prototype you see can hold a wine glass. The finished grippers will be much stronger. I wonder if you could tell me if anyone has posted 1:1 models of the RN-1 and/or the KHR-2 that I can use in Solidworks to facilitate creating the mounting of my gripper(s) to said structures?...

^_^

Bullit Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 12:39 am Post subject:

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Yeah the shadow robot hand is very cool. It uses air muscles.
http://www.shadowrobot.com/hand/overview.shtml

Hello,

The McKibbon Air muscle has inspired me as it inspired the Shadow group. Have you seen the Festo Fluidic Muscle? The problem with compressed air is the volume you need for actuation and the valves to control it. The resulting hand is about twice the size of a KHR-2/RN-1. I have been working on an actuator based upon McKibbons design also and have worked out a MUCH more compact/powerful/controlable way to implement it.

^_^

[rich_from_shadow]

The McKibbon Air muscle has inspired me as it inspired the Shadow group. Have you seen the Festo Fluidic Muscle? The problem with compressed air is the volume you need for actuation and the valves to control it. The resulting hand is about twice the size of a KHR-2/RN-1. I have been working on an actuator based upon McKibbons design also and have worked out a MUCH more compact/powerful/controlable way to implement it.

^_^

To be fair, the first Shadow knew about the McKibben muscle was when the Shadow Project took a biped to a robot conference, and everyone said "oh, those are the McKibben muscles".

Richard Greenhill had the idea himself, and we've made a lot of different muscles over the years.

As to size of muscle-based robot Hands; well, our current (C5) Dextrous Hand has 40 muscles, and is bigger than the human hand at the elbow. Partly that's because one of our customers insisted that the muscles be separated at the base and the top, and partly that's an artefact of putting the valve manifolds in the Hand itself, rather than off-board.

If you poke around our website, you'll see that Hand B managed a much slimmer profile, because the muscles were bundled together, and the valves were off-board.

cheers, Rich.

[MYKL]

Holy moly!

*Deep bow*

First I'd like to clear up that I wasn't trying to disrespect the Shadow Group. They're robotic endevours are very interesting and cutting edge. I guess (rereading the post I made) I did state/assume I knew more about how they came up with thier design. I am sorry. I was sure that when I went to your site (Quite some time ago) I read that you had bought the right/patent to use this design from Mckibbon. I had come up with a design of my own too and was very shocked when I found the McKibbon stuff. I was even more shocked when I found the Shadow Group had already outfitted a skelatal arm with actuators and had begun to create a bipedal platform.

Your Dextrous hand project has been an inspiration to me. I just was pursueing a different way to expand the bladder than you all have. Many, Many Kudos on all of your endevours. I'd love to work with a group of people that were willing to try to go in another direction like that.

I'll post my actuators here soon and I'd really like to see what you think of my idea(s).

I visit your site often to see if there is anything new to ponder...

^_^

[rich_from_shadow]

Holy moly!

*Deep bow*

First I'd like to clear up that I wasn't trying to disrespect the Shadow Group. They're robotic endevours are very interesting and cutting edge. I guess (rereading the post I made) I did state/assume I knew more about how they came up with thier design. I am sorry. I was sure that when I went to your site (Quite some time ago) I read that you had bought the right/patent to use this design from Mckibbon. I had come up with a design of my own too and was very shocked when I found the McKibbon stuff.

As I said, Eureka found a large number of similar designs over the years.

We found it was more about the implementation details, and the working through the many, many production options...

I was even more shocked when I found the Shadow Group had already outfitted a skelatal arm with actuators and had begun to create a bipedal platform.

We actually started with the biped, funnily enough!

Your Dextrous hand project has been an inspiration to me. I just was pursueing a different way to expand the bladder than you all have. Many, Many Kudos on all of your endevours. I'd love to work with a group of people that were willing to try to go in another direction like that.

I'll post my actuators here soon and I'd really like to see what you think of my idea(s).

I visit your site often to see if there is anything new to ponder...

^_^

It's always good to know that all this plugging away has some benefit to others

We try and update the site when there is something worth telling people about. At the moment, though, we're primarily working on producing production Hand systems for researchers doing interesting stuff - we sold one to NASA last year

[MYKL]

NASA!

Will an air muscle perform without atmospheric pressure?

Are you making something for that bot with Boba Fetts head?

I havn't heard much about the biped lately, have you completely given up on it?

^_^

[rich_from_shadow]

NASA!

Will an air muscle perform without atmospheric pressure?

Are you making something for that bot with Boba Fetts head?

I havn't heard much about the biped lately, have you completely given up on it?

^_^

The muscles operate on differential pressure, so the external pressure isn't too much of an issue. However, that wasn't for a space application per se - the Robonaut project bought it, partly to inspire their engineers, and partly because they could do experiments with it that you can't do on Robonaut.

We built the biped to work out how to build things like that, really - and learnt a lot in the process (don't get me started on debugging ADC circuitry, we'll be here for weeks). But by the time we got it to the state it was starting to be interesting, we needed to rebuild from scratch, and no-one had the energy. Especially as that was when the first generation of Japanese bipeds came out - so we moved over to building Hands...

[MYKL]

IMHO the only way anyone is going to give the Japanese any kind of competition is by coming up with original stuff like that. I've seen a few hands on the hobby bots and truely there is room for much more advancement. Sony's QRIO and Honda's ASIMO and Toyota's trumpet playing bot all have pretty good representions of what Japan can do with wads of YEN though...

I'd like to see robotic actuators move more toward Bionic/Biomimetic form and function. I'd much rather see a couple of legged monstrosities go at each other in any kind of competition than an inverted lawnmower and a wheeled skill saw. I'd like to see 'bots that look like the animatronic masterpieces that act in moves (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Jurassic Park) battle it out or finish the obstacle course.

Anyway, hats off to you and your group for pushing an envelope that seems to have no boundries...

^_^

[beermat]

Couple of these will turn your robot into a concert pianist for $16.95 per hand

Robot Hand

[MYKL]

It looks like it is rather large... There is one motor and a speaker.

The hand appears nice but the mechanics inside look to only be able to give the digits the ability to fail about in time with whatever music might be played though the speaker at its base...

I want one for my desk.

^_^