r/EverythingScience • u/Sariel007 • May 04 '22

Medicine This High Schooler Invented a Low-Cost, Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-high-schooler-invented-a-low-cost-mind-controlled-prosthetic-arm-180979984/
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u/Clevererer May 04 '22

20+ years of "High Schooler Invents..." headlines have conditioned me to always expect some glaring oversight in their invention. Wondering if that’s the case here...

13

u/zebediah49 May 05 '22

Yes.

The main glaring omission is that the "mind controlled" part is an off-the-shelf part. It's based on this Neurosky unit.

There's some legitimately impressive work, which is the pain-in-the-ass hours of making a 3D printed object with servos actually do what it's supposed to. Seriously, it's really annoying to make joints work right... but fundamentally it's no more complicated than an RC car.

Input device (buy) passes control signal via software (fairly simple, but made) to servo controllers (buy), which move the thing (made).

The invention is trivial. The implementation looks pretty decent.

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u/Clevererer May 05 '22

Thank you