This Robotic Hand Can Shift Gears to Catch a Beer Can and Crush It
By creating a lightweight, 3D-printed “transmission,” engineers were able to build a hand that is strong when it needs to be and fast when it needs to be.
“You have to select a gearing ratio to make the hand really strong, but then it’s slower, or really fast, but then it’s a lot weaker,” Kevin O’ Brien, a PhD candidate at Cornell and lead author of the study, told me over the phone. “But in your car you have a transmission that allows you to change gears so the car can be strong when it needs to be strong and fast when it needs to be fast. So we made a little, simple, 3D-printed transmission that can sit inside the robotic prosthetic hand.”
complete story can be found online at: Motherboard