1st Blog Post

[The First Blog Post]

To kick off the first post, I’ll give a sneak peek into what we’ve been working on as of yesterday with our initial prototype. A team member and I were conducting tests today, and while this is just the beginning, there will be further iterations to improve the mechanical design, software, and electronics. Here a Youtube link for a 20 second demo –> Click here for short video demo

The team and I have 3D printed an exoskeleton arm, which is controlled using an EEG EpocX portable 14-channel Emotiv headset. The video linked above may look jittery because we are manually injecting “push”/”lift” commands via Node-RED over MQTT. However, the headset itself provides much smoother and more precise control.

The images above show two angles of our first iteration. The forearm section was designed and printed quickly to expedite testing, so this isn’t even the first “real” prototype yet.

We’re using PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) written in Python and sending signals over MQTT. These signals are processed by a Node-RED flow to control our DS3240 40kg, 180-degree high-torque servo motors, which have been passing our tests so far for this use case.

I intend to post more updates on the progress of our project in the coming weeks and my own personal projects. Stay tuned!