Grip Assisting Glove

• 

  LED

• 

  button

• 

  Glove +Gear Stepper Motor

• 

  Arduino and Baseshield

Inspiration

I have always been interested in medical devices. I have experienced times when I have lost sensation in my hands from injury or fatigue and my hand does not function like it should. I have also thought that this would be a great step towards affordable devices geared towards elderly people and/or disabled people. I really wanted to make this device to assist my parents though. My father is a laborer and has used his hands all his life. I wanted to create this glove to ease the pressure of using your hands all the time. I also thought that it would be really cool to make something like this.

What it does

This glove will help people grip objects. Its original objective was to have the glove turn on, slowly start descending until it touched an object. Then it would, in increments, increase the pressure it applies to the object until it reaches a certain point. Then the glove will stop applying pressure. After that, the glove will disengage with whatever object it is holding slowly. Its new or additional objective is to add a feature where it can create a resisting force against the person's hand. This is ideal for physical therapy as the force the glove will impose can be monitored and varied by the physical therapist.

How I built it

The glove uses the Arduino 101 motherboard and the Grove Sensors. I used an additional breadboard and another power supply. In the Grove Sensor, I used an LED, a button, and the Gear Stepper Motor with Driver to this alpha prototype. I connected the motor, LED and button to the Arduino board. I had to add an additional power supply to the motor because the board did not have enough power to power the motor and the driver at the same time.

Challenges I ran into

The hardest part was connecting the power supply to the Arduino board and motor without destroying either/both. Another challenge was coding the program that allowed the motor to turn when I wanted it to and not have it continuously turn in the background.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I have very happy that I was able to get my idea out of my notebook and into the real world. I was pleased at how my pre-alpha prototype turned out, even though not much came out of it. I was proud of the fact that I was able to write a complete code that did what I wanted exactly. It was not extensive but I was fun and I am happy that I was able to do that. I was also very proud that I was able to finally control the motor and have it turn when I wanted it to.

What I learned

I learned that coding is still difficult and nothing is ever as easy as you imagined it would be. On the technical side, I learned that for a project like this, the proper sensors, materials, devices are needed for this to work and it's fine for a pre-alpha to have stuff thrown together to create a prototype but in reality, it is a more difficult to get a prototype out when you don't have the right materials.

What's next for Grip Assisting Glove

Hopefully, I can get something for what I submit in the hackathon and be able to afford better sensors/materials to really put building my device into high gear. I would love to see a real version and not a device that is put together using Arduino but rather something more robust and a lot smaller. I am hoping that I can make the Grip Assisting Glove a reality.

Built With

• arduino-101
• ardunio
• grove-kit-sensors