Helping hand

Slightly wierd stuff - the robotics team have to research a project on repairing/enhancing the body through technology... they have been planning to make a hand (sort of like Frankinstein but more limited) so here is a series of snippits on what is a hand - first a look at how our brain views a hand - its not just nerves in the skin, but the whole perception of what having a hand is... we get Biz's brain to adopt a rubber glove (kind of)... so if we do make an artificial hand, the person using it through our Brain-Computer Interface will grow to see it as part of their body (phew! it'd be sad if it was seen as an artificial bit stuck on after all our clever thought control stuff!)

actually, Biz knew what was going on - it worked much better with Phil when she hadn't a clue, but without the video running (hey ho!) - this is the BBC video that we were testing and checking out (it's true!)... neuroplasticity!

So... we can use thoughts to control the hand (using our BCI headset), we can get the brain to think of the artificial hand as part of its body (neuroplasticity), now we just need to make the hand!

We have some Nitinol (memory form nickel-titanium alloy) wire to make artificial muscles (when you heat it up (eg pass a current through it) it shrinks like a muscle does when the brain sends an electric signal (we can do that with our BCI headset)). Here it is doing that! When we put 5V across it, it lifts the 4oz weight! When we switch off the current it lowers it! Weird rearrangement of atoms in the alloy...

OK so the video is not very exciting - but we can make a wire extend or contract just by sending a current through it - a linear actuator that behaves very similarly to a muscle...

So now we are looking at how muscles work so we can copy them! Here's a vid of a microscope slide, we were looking at, of what's actually in a skeletal (human) muscle (looks like bacon! Yum!?!) OK what's it all about micro?

So once we've figured it all out, we will be able to make a hand that

• works like a hand,
• that the brain thinks is its hand (!) and
• that works when the brain just thinks what it wants the hand to do !!!

Here's the first rubber band controlled prototype... without the brainwave control as yet... there's a way to go still...

and a more terminator style...

...just need to put it all together guys!

We've been in touch with a team in the US - they made a youtube vid of their project so far - check it out and leave a comment! they're a little bit ahead of us in getting their presentation together!!!