Mmmh, Since InMoov hand has been released on Thingiverse in 2012, I received demands on
how to use it as a prosthetic. I was always a bit skeptical about it. I knew the initial design was not
really adapted for that matter and I think it could be better done if I kept
the prosthetic perspective in mind. Lately a french FabLab of Rennes asked me if they
could use InMoov for their project. So, I have been working on this for about three full days. I had made a first design very simple to see if it could actually work. I presented it in Rennes for the Bionico project. The idea is to get a finger that gets actuated mechanically instead of using braid lines to pull the fingers.
It may look similar, but I tell you, it isn't. This little baby really took me a hell of a time to design. When things are small, you need to take a lot in consideration with our 3D printers. First, all parts should be printable without or almost without support, the thickness of the walls have to be thick enough to be printed with a reasonable definition. Parts should be easy to assemble. And last, parts shouldn't require too much quality from our printers...
I know this is not the legs... Many of you are waiting to see what's next to download for your robot. But this is important, if it can help disabled people, it is urgent. You can download this prototype here. Remember this hasn't been printed yet and may have problems that I still need to resolve. It is uploaded for the FabLab of Rennes to check movements and frictions under Freecad. This could, if it has enough strength under load, replace the hands of InMoov later on. It is meant to work with a Corona DS238HV servo. Also Leonardo and I have been setting up a website for InMoov, it isn't ready yet, but things are coming. Leonardo has been working hard on it, and I have been asking for to modify things, so poor Leonardo is under load. Also I want to thanks the donators, for their generosity. It will help us to keep the site up. Jha has made a new script for mouth movement and Grog has been working to add it in the InMoov service. I still need to test that to see how that works, but if it's good, InMoov should be able to move his jaw everytime he says something. Cool! The legs... That's what I'm going to focuse on now. Remember I had made the foot. This foot needs work and I need to redesign the ankle because I want to add a servo to get more DOF. So that's the next goal. I have worked on the Knee but it is not clear yet how I want to actuate it. So much work for so little time.
Rennes, was the city of my
grandparents. It was a long time since I wanted to go and visit this city, but somehow never got the occasion. It is definitly a city worth more than a two days visit. I found it very charming, these little streets become very full of life. On sunday morning it is very quiet and empty.
A few weeks ago I was contacted by a
Nicolas Huchet, Bionico who was interested in developing a prosthetic hand
based on InMoov.
I had been already asked for a few other projects of
this sort, but was a bit reluctant to go along. The main reason is
because InMoov isn't conceived to be such device and could be a disappointment instead of something really helpful. It's all plastic,
even if ABS can be used in many devices, once 3d printed it isn't has
resistant as when it is injected. Also depending on how the hand is built and printed, the final product can be good or a bad.
I did explain most of my reluctance to him, but still he was ready to go on with the project.
Following this I got contacted by
the LabFab of Rennes. As you maybe saw on youtube there is a InMoov
builder, called Brancante, who's been very involved into testing a
prosthetic with InMoov.
Putting them in contact was a logic
thing, and of course they shared their different results.
Region Bretagne organized this week-end
a big event pretty much like a MakerFaire. Imagine, Construis. Since
Nicolas Huchet was going to present his Open Source prosthetic
project during this event, Hugues du FabLab invited me to join them
for two days to present and work with them.
It was very interesting, I got to meet
a lot of people, some part of the projectand some others just
discovering it. During the event I did my first Round table based on
the OpenHardware subject in company of Nicolas Huchet. Other guests
were there, SnootLab, Mutable, John Lejeune, Jimmy P Rodgers.
Being most of the time a bear in it's
cave this was an interesting shot. Talking in a microphone to an
assembly of people is something. I guess with practice it becomes
easier with time.
Hughes had been, during the previous
days, working on a first prototype which was a real DIY hand with
cables and wires. I think somehow it made it even more interesting to
people because of it's intriguing appearance. Anyway the prosthetic was wired
with myo electric sensors, and we got to test it on Nicolas. And it
worked !
Of course the open close pattern
movement was very simple and was working with a bit of latency.
Nylon threads used by Hugues were
streatchable and thin, which didn't allow any grabing of things, but
think of it. The InMoov hand was printed in a few hours, then servos
were added with cables and then all wired to the Arduino with sensors
and that's it.
I think if we work and develloppe the
concept and design we can get a working Open source devise pretty
fast, and transformable to particular needs. Don't misunderstand me,
it's not going to be as good as the ILimb, but it can be very
helpfull for those who can't afford to pay 25 000 euros for a
prosthetic. The Makerfaire Tour bus was in Rennes for the occasion, they did an interview about the project.
Since the Nederlands I hadn't posted
anything on my blog, because of a lack of time, but there has been a
lot of things going on around InMoov though.
The major one, is the implementation of
the i2C board in MyrobotLab by Grog. This is a major advancement
because now I can hook up 16 extra servos per i2C board added to the
Arduino.
So that means the eyes servos but also
the jaw, and next the dorsale, hips, legs, feet.
It has been a 100% worky on the first
test, Grog couldn't believe it
Then another test we did with Grog and
Alessandruino was to test remote controlling the robot through the
internet. Imagine this, Grog being in the US took control of the
InMoov gestures in my workshop in Paris France. Totally amazing to
see !!
We tried the same thing wth
Alessandruino but somehow it didn't work. I think we had too many
video instances working at the same time.
Next innovation, Jha in Australia has
been working on a script to make the jaw work as the robot speaks.
That's also cool ! Just uploading the python script into MRL and
the robots could repeat the prewrote sentence and having is jaw
working in accordance. It isn't perfect if you really focuse on the
jaw, but once you get other body movements at the same time it is
interesting. Some might see this as a bit uncanney. The script is
available on MRL and I will make it available on the download tab.
Another new and interesting happening
is, Leonardo from Italy who has been printing a super heroe InMoov :)
He has proposed to work on the transfer of the blog data to a real
site, so for that matter I bought the domain name: InMoov.fr Thanks to donators we will be able to host the site and create something more conventional for us.
