The hand grasping a bottle

View showing pushrods

View showing electronics

Closeup of pulleys


Development and construction


Andrew Laska controlling the hand with Sharp's Zaurus

Animatronic Hand
by Andrew Laska
Internship Project, MakingThings
Spring 2003

Project Description:
A mechanical hand fabricated from ABS plastic, thermoset epoxy, and other materials. Each finger of the hand contains a pulley system linked to a servo. When the servo pushes or pulls on the base of each finger, the pulley system activates to allow all joints in the finger to bend simultaneously. Using such a system, very realistic movement can be acheived with only a few servos.

System:
Teleo Servo Module, Teleo USB Translator, Teleo Power Module, 5 standard RC servos. The Teleo system can be controlled by a Max/MSP patch using the Teleo Max/MSP Externals or an application written with the Teleo Application SDK. In this example the application is running on Sharp's Zaurus.