As I have said, the most difficult part of my proposed project is to build a dexterous and flexible hand, so rather than do anything constructive today, I sat around and sketched out some designs for the hand using my own as a point of reference.
I drew on my hand all the joints and then measured them explicitly to ensure that I made an accurate plan:
I then looked into how the thumb needed to move around and came up with its 3 required movements:
Now that I had looked at the thumb, I had found a new problem – the palm. If you keep both your thumb and little finger straight and then try to touch the tip of your little finger with the tip of your thumb, you will see that your palm will curve into a concave shape, as demonstrated in the picture below, where A tries to meet B:
I think the easiest way to get the hand moving is to use high-tensile PVC coated steel wire connected to 5V servos to act as tendons for the front and back of the hand:
But after all of this, I still haven’t been able to talk to a lecturer about any of this – prepare yourselves for disappointment!