Have you ever wondered, how do bionic/robotic limbs work? Well, this website teaches you how to make bionic/robotic finger from scratch. This website includes everything you will need such as materials, instructions, the programs necessary to run your finger as well as the code for your finger. Click here to watch a video of my finished finger.
We need bionic limbs for many different reasons. One of the main reasons being that when someone loses their natural limb, getting them a bionic limb can be a vital part of their rehabilitation. For many people who lose their limbs, getting a bionic limb can increase their mobility and ability to complete every day activities. It can also help people who have these bionic limbs to remain independent. The main aim of bionic limbs is to get the person who has lost their natural limb back to functioning like normal as well as possible.
If using a 3D printed finger:
If you do not have access to a 3D printed finger, follow instructions here to make this simple straw one.
If you are not able to get on or two of these products head to the troubleshooting page for good products you can substitute in.
1. If you are using a straw finger, skip to step 4. If using a 3D printed finger, fold your strip of overhead plastic in half and cut a 3 cm long piece on the folded end. This will act as a joint to connect two of your finger parts.
2. Hot glue one end of the folded plastic piece into the tip part of the finger. Then trim your piece of plastic to resemble the size of a human finger joint (about 1cm), make sure to keep in mind that you still have to glue the other end into the middle finger part. Once trimmed to about 1 cm, hot glue the other end to the second finger part.
3. Repeat for the other finger part until all 3 parts are stuck together. (for reference photo scroll to step 5)
4. Thread your fisherman's wire through the holes in the finger, and hot glue the tip of the string to the tip of the finger.
5. Hot glue your threaded finger to the top of your thin wood so it looks like this:
1.Gather your Adruino Nano, flex sensor, micro servo, and usb cable.
2. Attach your flex sensor to pin A0 on your nano.
3. Attach your micro servo to pin 9 on your nano. (It is important to remember what pins you attach your extensions to as we will need to connect them through code later)
4. Plug in your USB cable to your laptop and connect it to your nano, you should see a few lights turn on on your nano. It should end up looking like this:
1. Get the end of the fisherman's wire that is not attached to your finger and thread it through the holes in the servo horn (the part on top that spins) and leave about 10-20cm of slack between the finger and the micro servo, make usre it is not tied too tight as then your finger will struggle to bend. See the below picture to compare yours against.
2. Once you have tied off your wire onto the micro servo and left some slack between it and your finger, hot glue your servo onto your block of wood where you measured out the slack like so:
Below is the code you will need to make your finger move.
//Include Servo library
#include
Servo myservo; // create servo object to control a servo
void setup() {
myservo.attach(9); // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object
// Configure flex sensor pin
pinMode(A0, INPUT_PULLUP);
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
int flexSensor = analogRead(A0); // Set the pin to plug your flex senor in to
int angle = (flexSensor - 425) / 1;
Serial.println(angle);
myservo.write(angle); // set servo position
}
If this code does not work, you want to know what each of these lines of code means, or you generally want to know more about this code, check out this youtube video and you can copy the code from that and it will work.
Once you have either copied and pasted or typed this code into the Arduino Program, plug your nano into your laptop and click the upload button. Don't forget to make sure you have the correct port and board selected (the port would be your laptop and the board would be Arduino Nano). If you have trouble with any of this, you can visit the arduino website here
1. Have you checked to make sure that all of your components are plugged into the right pin that corresponds to the pin number in your code? eg. is the flex sensor plugged into pin A0 as well as A0 being the pin set for your flex sensor in your code?
2. Have you checked to make sure your code is correct? Are there any missing or extra spaces or semi colons?
3. Is your Arudino plugged into an electriticty source like a laptop or battery pack?
1. Have you selected the correct port and board?
2. If you are getting this error message:
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x00 (and so on)
click here to find the solution.
3. Have you checked you computer is actually plugged into your Arduino?
There are many alternatives for each of the materials for your finger. There are: