Innovative Scholar Creates Robotic Hand
Top-year pupil Chris has created a genuinely innovative robotic hand, remotely controlled by an electro-mechanical glove. Chris built the hand entirely from scratch from scrap sheet metal that was on sale. Internal components ranged from springs, servo motors and gyroscopes to rivets, screws and nuts.
“The idea is that strain sensors in the glove detect when the wearer’s fingers bend,” he explained. “This information then gets sent via Bluetooth to a mechanical hand, which activates motors to bend or straighten the fingers.”
Every year the physics department asks fourth-year boys who are planning to study physics or engineering at university to do a summer project and later give a presentation.
“Chris’ presentation was excellent, one of the best I’ve seen in the four years we’ve been doing this,” said Head of Physics, Jeremy Douglas. “His Powerpoint was very good, but it was his explanation to the class that really impressed – definitely this year’s stand-out project. He plans to take it with him to university interviews for presentation.”
Mr Douglas noted that excellent past projects have ranged from the physics of stars and their spectral lines, to the Lorentz attractor in chaotic dynamical systems, to synthesising and demonstrating a superconductor.
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