Build your very own bionic finger
contolled by you!

Why do we need prosthetic limbs?

Prosthetic limbs are a necessary part in the improvement of life and rehabilitation of a person with a completely or partly missing limb. Prosthetic limbs can be nothing short of life changing to their recipients aiding them to perform necessary tasks crucial to their ability to stay independent.

Imagine not being able to use you thumb. Try it! As you can see everyday activities that you take for granted everyday become nearly impossible just without your thumb let alone a whole arm. In fact the American Medical Association states that loosing the use of your thumb is actually equivalent to loosing 22% of body function. The availability of prosthetic limbs aids nearly 2 million people a year helping them complete normal tasks in which we take for granted everyday. These people don't deserve to loose the use of their limb.

Loosing the use of your limb doesn't just effect you physical health but it can seriously alter the state of mental health of a person. Many amputees that loose their limbs have a dramatic change in their lifestyle. Some may be extremely active but once they loose their limb they are unable to do what they love to do which can cause mental health issues. A study conducted in a university demonstartes clearly the increase in depression after the loss of a limb. This increase was approximately 94%.

Materials

Construction

  1. Organise you three parts or you finger and cut the plastic into 1cm by 2cm pieces.
  2. Hot glue the pieces of plastic into place within the semi circular joints on the finger, do this for every joint in the
    finger
  3. Thread the fishing string through the wholes on the top of the three parts of the finger and hot glue the top of the
    string to the tip of the finger
  4. Hot glue the bottom part (larget part) of the finger to the end of the wooden plank with the top two parts hanging
    over the edge
  5. Thread the sring coming out of the end of the finger though the holes on the servo tying a knot at the bottom so it
    doesn't fall out when the servo moves
  6. Hot glue the servo to the wooden board far enough away from the finger that when prepeler is twistes the full way
    the finger is completely bent
  7. Glue the corners of the Arduino board to the wood making sure that the hot glue doesn't touch any metal

The final product

Coding:

// Include Servo library #include Servo myservo; // create servo object to control a servo


void setup() {
// setup code here to run once
myservo.attach(9); // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object
pinMode(A0, INPUT_PULLUP);
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
// put your main code here to run repeatedly
// variable to store the current angle
int flexSensor=analogRead(A0);
int angle=(flexSensor-380);
Serial.println(angle);


myservo.write(angle);
}

Explanation of the code

Troubleshooting problems

  1. If your code isn't uploading to your board go to tools in the top bar and change your serial prot to be usb
  2. If your code isn't working make sure you change your serial monitor to 9600
  3. If your code is still not uploading make sure that there are no spelling errors or mistakes as small mistakes can
    make a large difference
  4. If your code isn't callibrating make sure that all of you wires are attached to the board securly