Tatiana Anthony

In Introduction to Mechanical Prototyping, an elective Mechanical Engineering course, I worked with 3 other students to build an iris-based mechanical "hand."

 

The hand we made was able to lift spheres as small as 5/16 inch, and as large as a volleyball.  It was also able to pick up a drill, ice, soap, and a fork.

 

My main focus on this project was designing and protyping the fingers.  The project as a whole went through 3 iterations in 2-week sprints, and during each sprint, I tested at least two variations on the fingers.  This gave me valuable experience with rapid prototyping and failure testing.

 

A full description of the project and our process can be found at http://mechproto.olin.edu/sp14/final_projects/totally_a_hand.html.