Their story, in their words…
Our project challenged us to apply theoretical knowledge in practice to reach our desired goal, while developing our teamwork, coding and adaptability skills. Firstly, we contacted a 3D printing service to print out our STL file of our hand model and ordered the circuit equipment and screws for the hand. Once they arrived, we began to build the 3D printed hand together using the screws, placing the servos in their allocated spaces and attaching the fishing wire through the fingers to mimic tendon pulling motion. The fishing line was attached to each servo, tightening it to ensure the correct tension in each finger.
Then, we connected the wires of the servos to our circuit using a breadboard. This meant that our project required no soldering, so it was safe for us to do at home. Our guidance was a reliable website, which gave steps and guidance for building a robotic hand similar to ours. One of the major challenges was the drilling, due to the fact that it was strenuous on the wrists, taking a few days to complete. Furthermore, another challenge was attaching the screws as some would break and were difficult to assemble on the arm.
Afterwards, we hardcoded the hand movements, utilising the wokwi website to stimulate our circuit and test run it independently from our robotic arm. The code was designed to move the hand’s fingers in order for them to form BSL letters but due to constraints we only assembled one hand.
We then ran the code and our project was determined successful. We are extremely proud of our efforts in this project. It has definitely inspired us and given us more confidence to complete more technical projects into the future.
