Accordions and robots don't seem to have much in common -- although an accordion-playing robot would make for a killer Weird Al song. Nevertheless, the
RAPHaEL hand showed that push-box tech can make for some impressively limber fingers. Now the Virginia Tech College of Engineering Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory has created its successor, the RAPHaEL 2, and it too has already won an award. This time it grabbed top honors at the ASME Student Mechanism and Robot Design Competition with its air-powered digits, which now use a closed loop control mechanism and more advanced data acquisition hardware from National Instruments, enabling it to better sense what it's groping and to adjust pressure accordingly. It's also made of a more durable polycarbonate, but a carbon fiber version is said to be in the works, which should look totally awesome.
posted Sep 29th 2009 8:51AM
Nice
Yeah but can I jerk off with it?
Better to choke you with.
creepy;))) terminators like are to be unveiled yet....
This hand can be used as an interactive sex toy online ( teledildonics ) to give handjobs and to finger.
I'd rather have it remotely strangle annoying people and spammers and 'first' posters.
I sense it is a sad hand in search of a body.
I think calling it "air powered" is a little simple, it's called pneumatics and it's exactly the same technology that moves car making robots or construction vehicles.
Who's ready for a technological bitch-slap?
Soon I can get a real hand to replace the one I lost in that lightsaber battle with my dad!
Kinda looks like the glass hand computer from the Outer Limits episode "The Man With The Glass Hand."
Kinda looks like the glass hand computer from the Outer Limits episode "The Man With The Glass Hand."
Hey Engadget, please fix your comment posting system because it has some bugs.
You gotta hand it to these guys, they do great work.
Lets just say..... banned in Alabama.
what's the point of making a carbon fiber hand?
for the durability and tensile strength I assume
One of the guys on the team was my residential advisor (RA) in the dorms last year at Tech. Very cool stuff they've got going on. :)
Sexbots here we come!
Cool technology with this robot.
If it becomes much more sensitive it'll become emo.
sex toys have been around for many years. In victorian times they were using wooden dildos. And now they are going automatic!