LEGO Hand Controller


[David Hyman] built this device to control a LEGO claw. One one end of things is the part you wear, that measures movement of two fingers and your thumb. On the other end of things is a LEGO claw with three opposing digits. You move, it moves. The claw uses light sensors and a gradient strip for position feedback. There is also an up-down wrist action that uses a touch sensor as the input. This is impressive enough to give the sniper rifle a run for its money.

[via Make]

12 thoughts on “LEGO Hand Controller

  1. neat..
    Now, fit the “alignment strip” offcut from a broken hp printer for even more precise operation.

    it occurs to me that the gradient filters jessops sell might be useable for this application.

  2. Amazing thing here is that a “children’s toy” today can do so much more than it could do 20 years ago. Legos will be forever cool, and it looks like they are going to keep evolving until someone builds a Terminator out of them, and then someone is going to lose an eye, and that is when fun time stops and someone is going to bed without their supper.

    “Young man, you put your Skynet up right now and head right to your room!”

  3. I kinda wish I still had my Mindstorms kit so I could build something like this, now. On the other hand, I couldn’t program it, which is why I donated it to my university.

    If everything that people thought didn’t belong here wasn’t posted on Hack-A-Day, there would be no content.

  4. I mean right now, young man! You wait till your father hears about this! Sending the Terminator to kill the neighbors cat! That is not right! Lego Terminators, what is wrong with you?

  5. Looks like only one finger works, but I could be wrong, that’s just all he shows us in the video; also it looks like the movement of the claw is *not* 1:1 with the movement of his fingers.

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