Robotics education: Development of cheap and creative EMG prosthetic applications

Abstract

We propose a novel robotic developmental kit for educational purpose. It helps junior high / high school / university students to understand recent prosthetic technology and, moreover, to provide a chance to produce creative prosthetic applications for short time at low cost. The developmental kit consists of an EMG-to-Motor controller and a wire-driven device. For delivering the cheapness and easiness to students, we demonstrate three prosthetic applications based on the kit: (1) Simple Prosthetic Hand is a mimic of commercial prosthetic hand. It illustrates that low-precise design achieves cheap production cost and sufficient function as a prosthetic hand. (2) Rock-Scissors-Paper Prosthetic Hand is based on prosthetic hands for research use. It clearly illustrates EMG-to-Motion discrimination processes by displaying real signals. (3) EMG Presbyopia Spectacles shows the possibility that beginners design creative prosthetic applications based on daily activities. Finally, we report two educational courses we have conducted for junior high and high school students.