Robot Hand

Today I will be teaching you how to create a Robot Hand.

• Exacto knife
• Pliers
• Hot glue
• Styrofoam
• Rubber bands
• Paper clips
• Fishing wire
• Pencil*
• Sharpie*
• Ruler
• Servos
• Arduinos

*optional items

The first thing you need to do before you cut anything out is measure your fingers, palm, and forearm. Using the ruler, measure the width of five of your fingers onto a strip of styrofoam. Then, measure the length of your fingers and mark them on the strip. Next, measure the length and width of your palm and forearm onto the stryofoam. Try to connect your hand and forearm into one piece of stryofoam.

Next, cut out the fingers you previously traced onto the stryofoam. After cutting out the fingers, cut out the palm and hand. Once you have the fingers cut out, cut some triangular prisms into the fingers so that it fits the diameter of your finger.

After cutting out the fingers and the triangles, use the sand block to sand them down to make a more cylindrical shape. You can also sand down the edges of the palm and forearm. Next, sand down the tops of the fingers to be round !Make sure to not sand it down too much!

After you have finished sanding the fingers down, mark where your knuckles are on the finger, either using a pen, sharpie or something else so that you can clearly see where you marked it. After marking it out on each finger, cut one finger at a time so that you don't get the parts mixed up. Make sure to keep each finger separate so you don't mix them up if they aren't labeled.

Feed the fishing wire through your needle (make sure to have at least seven inches of wire). Once you have the needle threaded, you can knot it on the shorter end so that the wire does not slip out. Then, take your now threaded needle and feed it through the top of the first section of the finger. Next, repeat those steps so the finger properly lines up. Once you have the finger threaded, at a fourty five degree angle, thread the needle through where you want the finger to be. Repeat this step for all of your fingers.

Next, cut a paper clip to create small arches. Once you have the arches, place them over the fishing wire you previously threaded the fingers through. Make sure to press them down firmly so the fishing wire doesn't move.

Once the fingers are stabilized, begin cutting the elastic bands to the needed size. Make sure to cut at least 30 smaller elastics. Once you have the elastics cut, begin gluing them onto your hand. Make sure to make the finger straight before you begin gluing. Another tip, put hot glue on the elastic first before you glue it onto the foam hand. You might need a second person to hold the fingers still when you glue the elastics on.

Once you have the elastics glued on, you can begin attaching the servos. Cut the end of the fishing wire down to your desired size. Then, you can cut an area in your hand to place the servos. If you did this, you can put some hot glue on the bottom of the servo to help it stay. Once you have your servo placed, tie the end of the fishing wire around the servo.

After you have steps 1-8 completed, begin writing your code. You can watch some YouTube tutorials to help you with this. You need a math code in python to help you calculate the volume and waste of the hand. You also need a code in Arduino to make the fingers move. Use an arduino nano to code the fingers. You may need to go over and fix your code a lot of times before it works properly.

Once you have these steps completed, you're done! I hope you enjoy your brand new Robot Hand!