Hardware Agnostic Robotic Hand Algorithms with Recreational, Educational and Healthcare Applications

With a mockup prototype of a robotic hand, various algorithms were implemented. This exposed a broad range of applications of the prototype. In this body of work, algorithms of a dexterous mechanical robotic hand will be presented which span areas including recreation, healthcare and education. Imagine a child learning to count. If this hypothetical child had a robotic assistant who could infinitely demonstrate the way to count without getting tired, consequently the child would learn how to count at a much-accelerated rate. Perhaps in an arcade there is a robotic hand that plays games like rock paper scissors or thumb wars, subsequently the youth will be further inspired to pursue an understanding of robotic systems. At the Tech Crunch Robotic conference on July 21st, Dean Kamen the inventor of the segway said something very profound, it was along the lines of how when it comes to interest in Robotics, we are competing with activities like after school sports or video games because these are the things that consume the time of children. However, robotics is mostly seen as an academic activity when it must not be so. With the changing job market, equipping arcade games with intelligent robots is not a farfetched idea. Another algorithm implemented was a sign language algorithm where the robotic hand executes a sequence of hand-signs in a desired order. The programming was done with Adafruit’s PCA9685 controller which can control 16 servo motors through an I2C interface. When all I2C buses are used then the controller can control up to 992 servo motors.