e-NABLE e-NABLE Presentations/Interviews, 8 Apr 2021

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From YouTube: Updates from Haifa 3D

Description

In this recording, you'll hear from Yair Herbst of Haifa 3D, an e-NABLE chapter in Israel. They're doing some wonderful and innovative work on developing designs that can be more easily customized, with a streamlined production workflow.

https://www.facebook.com/Haifa3d/

A

Okay, so is it, uh is it yay or is that am I proud.

B

Yeah yeah yeah here there's no really good uh it's hard to pronounce, though.

A

Yeah here, okay! Well thanks for joining me, I I saw the article uh in the hub about the work that uh you and your colleagues are doing in israel and uh dealing with automated production of enabled devices and it sounded fascinating. So I just wanted to hear more about what you're doing and be able to share this with with the rest of the community. So maybe you could just tell me a little bit about uh the work. That's going on out. There.

B

um Yeah sure so uh I think it was uh maybe six or seven or eight years ago, hyper 3d actually started as an organization in israel to promote the field of 3d printing, not necessarily related to enable, but then at some point uh um a physician unrelated to orthopedic or anything just saw just heard about enable and approach uh uh johav and jakob who founded the commun, the the organization and and said this is great. Let's, let's do it um so they.

A

B

As as uh yeah, so they they started, as uh you know, uh to produce these in a uh enabled devices. I think it was uh the raptor reloaded at that time, um and actually I started working with them as an undergraduate student at the technion we did the I did my bachelor's project under joab's supervision.

B

um We actually worked on adding um sensing, so we we added the sensors to the hand. I think this project was published. It was at the time it was. The google plus.

A

It did get imported into the hub, so I saw it there just the other day.

B

A

So you added a sense of touch ability to sense uh heat and things like that right, yeah.

B

Yeah yeah, so that what that was the project predicted back at the time, but we actually found that you know that that's not as important right now, but mostly we are dealing with the problem of fitting these these these devices now because uh hyphen 3d is very close to the technion.

B

You know we have volunteers that are engineers which I think would it's not that not all chapters have this, uh so you know we can do we have volunteers that can do 3d design and modify. You know for wider hands or stuff like that. As you know, when, when we scale the hands, we can do a linear scale in all dimensions.

B

Once we want to do something more complicated, the hinges you know stop working again, so we actually found that you know this is the main problem and uh we had a project um for um you know from body-powered hands. So we have a model, that's very similar to the rocket reloaded, because we started back in the day.

B

We actually are now working on modifying it to make it more similar to the phoenix and the idea was to make it you know is easily customizable um we want to. We want to be able to change the width of the the the palm separately, the length of the fingers that the length of the palm make everything you know as uh customizable as possible, because we saw that you know we have the. uh I know the common cases, uh but actually you know they're, not.

B

I don't know from what we found they're, not that common yeah. We have so many cases that you know just don't fit. uh You can fit a regular hand to them, but it's going to be very, very big, maybe or something that.

A

So before we get into the details about how you're doing this and how you're addressing the challenge tell me a little bit more about the the haifa 3d organization today, uh what has it grown into? Who, who is it made up of just help? Me understand the organization a little bit.

B

um So so, as I said, uh you have madan and yakumalinovic uh um started it. You everything is relatively active at uh at the hub, um so so um yeah they started as again as an you know as to promote the field of uh 3d printing. But now we're actually, you know mostly doing the hands, and we also actually also have a very big project that you know kind of started because of the ends. But it's it's not really 3d printing.

B

um So you know this is mainly what we do. I can talk about it a bit more soon.

A

B

um If, if, if you think that's interesting, um yeah so um yeah, so actually this is mainly what we do. We do the the hands and we do the uh um the it's called. The echo fits it's sort of a glove that helps uh users uh uh to open their hand, so uh users or I'm I'm actually, not I'm not as involved in that project, I'm mostly dealing with the hand stuff, so I might not be as accurate, so so uh patients or users with hands that they can only uh close them.

B

They can't really open them. So there is some sort of a neurological disorder. It's it's cause. It could be caused by trauma or a stroke, so a simple glove that has springs in it that open the hand and then you know they can counteract these springs. So they don't have a problem. You know applying additional force against these springs when they close the hand, but they can't really open it. So.

A

B

A

Is that a is that a design that your team has shared? Is that an open source design.

B

um It's it's definitely open source. I don't think it was shared. uh This is actually something that uh you know we're trying to uh to promote to. You know to make it uh uh um do the regular regulatory uh requirements to actually be fitted by by uh ortho by uh physical therapists and and occupational therapists. So this is uh uh but it's open. It's open we're not gonna patent or anything so yeah.

A

I only ask because I'd love to get it added into our device catalog. Even if it's not a 3d printed device, it's still something that we could list there as an option for our volunteers.

B

um Yeah, so the only thing is that it requires some uh knowledge in in textiles and and and uh and sewing, but um this is actually something that we got funding from a few uh national uh bodies in in israel. So uh the idea is to make it uh you know very simple and to have it mass-produced, it's it doesn't need to be as custom customizable as the hands. So I know maybe hopefully uh at some point uh uh someone could order uh this glove from us and and fitting the actual doing the feeding process.

B

It's not gonna, be as complicated, but uh this is something that maybe we need to talk with. uh You have about because he's definitely the leader of the project and he he'll be.

A

Sounds good yeah now it just seemed like something that you know. We have so many volunteers with different skills, not all.

B

A

Are into 3d printing, maybe maybe someone would like to do something that involves something um but.

B

A

To I'd love, to go back to talk about the customization side of things, so you talked about being able to customize devices, but um do it in a way where we're not messing up the screw holes and the hinges, and things like that. So how? How are you going about achieving that.

B

Yeah so so, as I said, we started with the body power designs, but um then at some point, because uh me and shounet is also a volunteer and she's, also studying at the technion we're both studying in a robotics lab.

B

We started actually working on the motorized uh design, so so the body powered is uh kind of on hold, even though I think it it's gonna, be easier to make it uh usable by volunteers. But uh anyway we the way we approach this uh design modifications. This customization is a design in solidworks, it's a card software.

B

So the idea is to pick certain dimensions that are going to be important and then we link it. We link it across the different um parts of the hand. So you know currently, um let's say the body power design that we have is currently you know we can change everything. We can change whatever we want, but it will take some time.

B

So if I want to change the length of the fingers, I'm going to need to go into each part change the length go to the palm change, the dimensions there and then make sure everything uh you know gets rebuilt uh fine, so you're.

A

Not so you're doing parametric modeling.

B

Yeah, so this is going to be parametric, modeling and and also by the way we saw that we spent some time in, because you know these hands are even even if they're changing in size they're, basically the same. They have the same parts and the same uh everything. So we saw that even the time we spend on organizing these parts in in how to print them in orientation.

B

So the rotation is significant for strength right and for supports. So just orienting all the parts, the way we want them and organizing them on the on the print platform, even that deck takes us time.

A

B

Yeah so uh so the idea is to have you know we have all these parts the they are linked together, as you said, is a parametric design. We can change the dimensions, we want everything changes at the same time and then we have assemblies.

B

So we have assemblies that are functional, so the hand looks like a hand right. So this is the usual. How usually an assembly in in in a cut software would look? You have an assembly of the device to see how it you know how it looks right, uh but we also have an assembly to print so this assembly, you can choose the the print bed size and then, in our case, we mostly use uh up mini printers.

A

B

Small printers, uh so in this, in our case it's 120 millimeters by 120 millimeters and everything gets ex. You know laid out on this platform one or two platforms, depending on the size of the hand and depending on the size of the printer, but everything gets laid out in the right orientation, and you know it's just you know, take this assembly, save it as stl and put it in the printer.

A

Yeah, that's very smart. I am as you describe this. What I'm thinking about is you know? I don't? I don't know if it's maybe because you guys are uh linkedin with people that are are engineers and professionals. Maybe you have access to solidworks in ways that others don't a lot of us. You know, don't have access to that and we've started to lean towards using autodesk fusion 360, because we can get it free of charge, but it has similar features and I'll bet we could do I.

A

I know we can do the parametric modeling infusion and I I suspect we can do the same thing that you're describing with the assemblies. I just never thought about doing that. That way, that's really really smart idea, um and so you are using solidworks then to actually are you just exporting that assembly as an stl or using solidworks to actually generate gcode.

B

No, we we, there is a possibility to do it with specific printers, but we usually save it.

A

As just bring it to your slicer, okay, that's very smart, okay! So then you're using the cad software, so that anybody that wants to build a custom hand, the customization is actually happening in solidworks you're, using that to adjust parameters and generate the modified files. Okay, so then.

B

A

Everybody on your team have access to like. Do you have licensing set up in a way that your whole team has access to that.

B

Yeah well because both of us already the technion, so the technion has a licensing for that. So it's not really an issue, but I agree: fusion is, is way more accessible in that, in that sense,.

A

Yeah, but that's still it's a great idea now, I'm also always interested in like. Can we build on your work? You know, so we don't have to start from scratch, and I've always had problems in the past. Trying to you know bring things from solidworks to fusion. You can get the geometry no problem, but trying to export with all the sketch layers and with everything tied together. I've never found a good way of doing that. Are you aware of any good options for that.

B

There isn't a good way of doing that. I know. Solidworks has a tool for it's called feature works, so it's trying to understand what features were used in the design of the part. So you you will import the geometry and then it tries to you know uh uh understand what the features are. Maybe you have some extrudes some fillets.

A

That's bringing objects into yeah.

B

And also uh it's not working very well. I.

A

Mean, if you, if you take.

B

Something like um I don't know, maybe if we think about the phoenix or you take some of the pins, I assume that actually, even for that, I'm not sure, but maybe for the pin it pins. It's not it's going to work, but if you take something like the fingers or the palm, definitely there's no way that it's going to be able to rebuild that in future. That's very, very, very hard it's. So this is not something that it's not going to work um well.

B

The idea for for this specific design is that you know we kind of thought in the paper we we wrote. So we have the the scanner and this uh setup with the the the camera to capture the user's.

B

Dimensions, so the idea is that you know this could be done remotely. So if we have the license, you know you pass us the uh all the dimensions everything gets generated and then you get back the uh the files. So the idea is that once we finish working with you know, once the design is made up, nobody else needs to open solidworks. Only. You know we need to have one place where the.

A

Files are being generated, spl files and then the volunteers.

B

A

That's a good point now: did you use whoop hold on sorry? How are.

B

A

Did my microphone just changed, I'm not sure what just happened. Okay, um so do you say you use sizing photos, do you ever use like 3d scans or 3d geometry of the limb, or do you just stick with sizing photos.

B

So again, it really depends the activity that is now going on at the at haifa 3d, when what we we actually you know when we meet mostly children, but also adults. You know this is one thing these. These models that I'm talking about are not fully functional, we're not giving them a ways yet, uh okay, so so yeah. So this this is done in the usual.

B

um uh You know, methods that all the community is using. um uh We started using. uh This was actually published in the hub, a while back the the scanner with the three cameras by uh guy medan or guy yeah. I think a guy published it in the in the hub um and it's it's available for everyone. uh The only thing is that we use an old version of the reinstance cameras, so this might need some work. uh You know this is just what we had but they're, not for sale anymore.

B

So anyway, but now we have the this low-cost 3d scanner that works well. So actually we we have the user that.

B

Has has a working thumb, um but it doesn't have um much flex flexion at the at the wrist, um so we created- and I and I tend to share it. We had a lot of success with the model. It's this model. It's not just. We use it's not the first time we used it. We create a model that is body part, it's based on the phoenix, but it's operated by the elbow, but it sits only at uh on the wrist.

B

So it's connected to the elbow with uh like a bowden, uh cable sort of like uh what you see in a bicycle on the brakes. So you have a metal wire through a tube uh and then uh you still get this rotation of the wrist. uh So basically it's elbow-powered, but you still have this movement, but it's you know it's for user that don't have the ability to move the wrist and we have we had like. uh uh I don't know trying to think. Maybe it's the fourth one.

B

That's using this model and actu it's it's working working pretty well, but I started talking about it because um he had a thumb and- um and in these cases we saw that it really helps to have a 3d representation of the hand to make sure it fits into the into the palm. It doesn't necessarily have to be a thumb. Any residual finger makes the the change. You know it's it's not it's not just a matter of scaling. You need to cut the stl file and change it so uh yeah.

B

So this is what we did uh for dudu um and uh actually you can see the I think jacob uploaded a video of the of dudu with the hand to the uh facebook page of haifa 3d. um But in any case, because we needed to cut the device and and what we did usually is uh we take the the like the residual limb. We put it on a piece of paper.

B

We trace the uh the hand the shape uh and then we just uh extrude it in a certain shape. So this gives you kind of a 3d representation of the of the residual limb. It's not very accurate. So for dodo. We used actually the the the 3d uh scanner setup that, as I said, was published and, and in this case you know, we took the scan and actually could make sure that the way we cut the thingy nick's hand around the residual fingers actually works.

B

So this is that this was actually one of the first time we actually gave uh a device that is really based on uh on a scan and it really worked. It worked really really. Well, I mean the fitting, was you know spot on, so it.

A

B

Very very nice, but.

A

B

Very exciting but um but yeah, but but usually we use, you know just you just pictures and measurements if we do elbow-powered hands, so it's on either the the quavo hand or the unlimited arm, or something like that. So uh we use you know. We simply measure that by tape this is you know it's kind of uh separate the the r d work and the actual device, fitting they're kind of separate they're, not uh um different devices, different uh procedures.

A

So if you don't mind I'd like to see, if I understand things correctly or just kind of recap what I heard about this, this production process, so um getting back to the not the design side of things but just producing custom devices, it sounds like the the the sizing methods that you're using are pretty typical for what the community is doing.

A

You would get the same kind of sizing photos, but you you bring this into solidworks and your you have the models in there developed using parameters, so you can specify a variable, for you know the hole, diameter or the tolerance. You know amount and things like that. You can adjust those parameters at any point right and then so you can make these parametric adjustments to modify these models as needed uh in with, while maintaining the circularity of holes and all that good stuff.

A

And then you can lay those out automatically for a print bed by using assemblies that are designed for a specific build area and export that to stl and and you print. Those out is that do I have the gist of it. Correct.

B

um Yes, that that's the concept, the other thing that I think is kind of or can call it special about this design- is that this is something we talk about in the paper. We we tried it to create a concept that is based on. We called it a skeleton of this and the skin, so we tried to make it. You know the idea is it's kind of by bioinspired.

A

B

We have the joints and everything that actually, you know create.

B

The the structure, the the kinematic structure of the hand, so all the joints and everything so these are, you- know very simple uh links that are connecting in the pins. So this is everything there is called the skeleton and then you know we wrap it up with uh something that we call a skin, so the skin can be. You know different things as and as we see in the community, and we see it a lot of time in israel. You know the kids that we see usually want a very colorful hand.

B

They love the phoenix design in most cases, so uh the first skin that we created is is an an ironman skin that you know, we simply found an stl online and- and you know we put it on top of the uh the skeleton so and- and also you know mostly when we meet adults but not necessarily, we you know some cases, they want uh uh something that is more human-like, so we have yeah. So we have uh again a skin that we find online. We didn't create it.

B

We don't really have a lot of designers in the team um on the engineers, so uh you know we. We took a skin that was created by someone else and then we put the same. You know we take the same skeleton, but we put a different skin on it and maybe the idea is to have you know more skins, more, more ideas that we didn't think about, but.

A

So help me to understand this part: how do you put a skin on the skeleton? Is this taking a 3d model and actually incorporating it onto your skeletal models.

B

Yeah, so so this is not something. That's immediate! It's not like we're going to publish the the skeleton and somebody's going to you know say I want this one and download it and, and it's going to work it requires some fitting. But um and again this is not fully working yet, but the idea is to make it as simple as possible to incorporate new skins.

A

B

A

Sort of a modular approach where you'd be able to use different- that's that's great, and it's you know this is. This would be a little bit out of scope for today's discussion, but I'd love to follow up with you separately, because I'd like to learn more about some of the design elements that you guys have chosen.

A

um We I we actually have a new team, that's working together and we're meeting weekly to develop a new design for the community, that's kind of pulling from some of the the best parts that we we've found from our different designs and we're trying to make different improvements and we're we're right now we're in the phase of just exploring different options for like what is the mechanism that we use for the you know the extension and of the fingers, and you know to use strings to use elastics to use.

A

You know um you know, metal springs, there's all different kind of mechanisms you could look at using. um You know how do you make it quieter? What are the different kinds of approaches for different materials? Just there's a lot of considerations, I'd love to hear what you guys have done, because it might give us some ideas about how to approach that stuff. So maybe we could have a separate discussion about getting into some of those design choices that you guys made.

B

Yeah yeah sure sounds good.

A

Yeah so then, what are the plans for this? It sounds like you're moving towards something you're moving towards the ability to produce these more customizable devices in a more efficient manner is. Is that so that you can just continue to do more of the enable type volunteer, work and just kind of increase the scale of that? Or do you have other plans as far as where this is heading.

B

Actually, it's just you know this is for now. This is just the plan is to expand our activity. So the idea is that you know a volunteer doesn't have to sit so many hours actually customizing the device. It's going to be a few clicks away and also the result is going to be better. um You know when I started uh volunteering and enable you know I may make my two took me: two or three tries before the hand actually fit well like sometimes it's too big big.

B

Sometimes it's you know pressing at specific points, so it hurts and now it work. You know it's it's much faster and this is caused, I think mainly because of experience, not just mine. We have other volunteers, we have you know uh physical therapists for, for instance, they're also more experienced with these devices. So.

A

B

Trying to make it simply easier, uh uh you know, for volunteers to fit these devices and again get a better result. The results we got with the 3d scanner and again, maybe it's not it's not enough to do one case. Maybe it was just slack, but you know hopefully not, but it's definitely something that we need to try more and understand if it helps.

B

But if you know if, if because of the scan, we got this, you know excellent fit, you know first, try, um then you know this is this is what what we want right? It's um so we so yeah so expand the enable activity in high for use. The time we spent, but also you know, gives the ability to uh volunteers that are not engineers or not have.

A

B

Experience in design, you know they're going to be able to create these great devices that fit very well.

A

And that's the key, I you know you're doing something that I think is exactly the the right direction that that we want to be trying to head. This is something that we've struggled with for years, quite frankly, as a community um just getting access to the solid body, you know original cad files for a lot of our designs. We just haven't been able to yeah the community works with. As you know, we work with stl files. We work with measures and there's very little. You can do with that.

A

You just can't work with a mesh in the way that you can so we're really struggling with. How do we go about getting solid body versions of our existing designs? And you know.

B

Maybe the answer.

A

Will end up being that we don't? We just focus on making sure that the new designs we're developing, get done in a way that we have the solid bodies but moving forward. I I think you've got it right. We want to develop these parametrically, whether it's infusion or solidworks development parametrically, and I love your idea of using the assemblies.

A

I could see us setting up, for example, a template for fusion 360, which any of our community members can get for free as a as an individual and a volunteer. We could set up templates that would include perhaps these different assemblies for the most common 3d, printers or printer sizes, um and and have you know, different templates for each of our different designs, assuming we can get them in that solid body uh form. So I you know, the vision here is really exciting.

A

It's going to take us some time to get there, because we don't have most of our designs in this format, but at least we can urge our members that you know hey if you're designing something new, don't just share the stl files make sure you make the cad files available to communities. We can do a lot with that, so I do. I actually have a. I have a license of solidworks. I don't use it much, I'm not very skilled with it.

A

I wonder, though, if you might be able to share one of your files just so I can see how you set up some of these assemblies and see if I'm able to maybe duplicate that over on fusion and figure out a way to do the same thing. There.

B

um Yeah, actually for the, I think, for the assemblies for the you know the 3d printing assemblies. uh Even if you know, if you it's much harder to make it, uh you know all the parts in one platform but uh but act, it's a lot easier to take. Even like you get for the phoenix right, the phoenix you have. I don't know, maybe uh the tips, uh the phalanges right, the palm the gauntlet and then all the other small parts. So.

A

It's not a lot of stl.

B

Files, so it saves most of the work and solidworks, usually when you export, I think also for fusion. I assume, if you make some changes and then you re-export the stls every every different part is, you know, uh is saved um individually and also, if you do it from the assembly, it's it's being saved in the in the orientation. It's it's in the assembly. So maybe, if your fingers in the assembly looks like that they're a bit, you know flexed, that's the way, they're going to be saved and that's a nightmare for 3d printers.

B

You have to take every individual part and that's like.

A

You have to be laying flat.

B

So yeah we just.

A

We oriented all of our models that way just like. If you look at our cad file for the phoenix hand that we have in fusion they're, all you know lying the way they would be printed. We have them all oriented with the flat side down and all that. But that's that's all you get. Then you have to export them. You know individually or what have you so I like the ability to group them and export those grouped stls, so I'll. Look into that further you've. Given me, some really good ideas, but ultimately it's you know.

A

I think the key point is getting our designs into a solid body format. I I think it's relatively you know once you have it as a proper.

A

You know as a cad file, including you know your history, it's not hard to go back and kind of reinsert the parametric elements, but we've got to have the solid bodies first, so.

B

Yeah, I agree, but but also, if you making this parametric and also I let's call it smart parametric designs, because you just you don't even you're you don't just want to you know, have everything it's going to be there right. You have the ability to change every single dimension there, but some of the dimensions are simply not interesting. Maybe you do some kind of fill it.

B

So you don't have sharp edges and the radius could be 10 millimeters or 11, but you don't really care right as long as it's working, but sometimes you know, if you change too much dimensions, absolutely the fillet is not going to work. This edge is going to disappear.

B

So um so these designs need to be need to be parametric, but they are also. You know they need to be customizable in a way that if you change them and again because it's you know when you do this uh simple scaling of stls, they work great right. You just bump everything by a certain number and that's it, but.

A

You're right once you start doing the individual manipulations things start happening.

B

That's a great point.

A

So you really have to think about it during the design process yeah and for a certain component. You might not use a parameter to specify, but you might use an equation that some multiple of a parameter or something like that so yeah, that's you're, right, yeah,.

B

So it's it's definitely something to think about uh creating this uh it's this is. This requires.

A

A lot of purple.

B

Work and then you know after you finish, you need to play with the numbers and see that you know.

A

B

Because uh you know when again, when you scale in scl, it's going to work every time. But when you.

A

B

You change the dimension in in a parametric model. It's you know. In some cases it's going to simply break. Let's call it uh solidworks sometimes have errors, it doesn't it's not able to rebuild, or you know again it some some dimension might be bigger and a specific edge disappears. And then you know once it's not there, the software, so uh um we had some. You know we learned a few things like fillets are, are usually problematic. It's a kind of uh vulnerable feature because it's uh related to edges, it's not like.

B

When you have a sketch and you extrude it. You know the sketch is there? It's not. I think it's going to disappear, but if you do feel it's for example, fillets might you might lose an edge? So it's a problematic feature. For example, you have uh anyway without getting into details. You know it's not just creating the parametric designs, but it's also thinking about how to create them and sometimes.

A

Even after you finish, the.

B

The design and to go back and rebuild it, you know create.

A

The same part again, but.

B

In a different way, yeah.

A

So now you mentioned before that you were originally working with the raptor reloaded and you've been modifying it and kind of bringing it in the direction of the phoenix. Then you talked about this hand that has the sort of skeletal and skin components is that the same.

B

A

That we're talking about.

B

The the skin and the skeleton is for the motorized version, the one we talked about in the in the paper. Okay,.

A

B

But ideally I mean um you know once we we have it working properly for the uh motorized version. We hope this was the intention that it's gonna be relatively easy to make it suitable for um for body power device, because you basically take the palm and then take all the motors out, and there should be enough room for the residual limb maybe make some changes there, and then you have the gauntlet and the gauntlet is relatively easy to design, because it's usually you know the the flat version with the term form.

B

We really really like it. It's simply. It's just working well right. It's we love it. It's an easy print, it's an easy design and it's very, very strong, and it's simply working.

A

Yeah good: well, it's exciting work. I and I I'm glad I learned more about what you're doing, because it helps with what I'm working on and some others are working on it you've. Given me some great ideas, um I I would I really look forward to seeing I know you're still working on some of these designs, but you know both the powered and the the body-powered versions. I'd love to get these into our enable device catalog when they're ready. So please keep that in mind.

A

You know once you're at a point that you feel comfortable sharing them. Let's get them up there onto the hub and including the powered one. You know we have so many. uh You know, for example, classrooms. You know, students, groups that are involved and now and enable and those those power designs would give them some great learning opportunities because it gets into the electronics and wiring and all kinds of interesting stuff. Maybe a raspberry pi. I don't know what's going in there, but it gets into a lot of interesting areas.

A

So it would be great to have some of those in our catalog as well.

B

um Actually, for that we had a project that started way back. We have a super. Talented engineer is uh maybe 85 86 now, um so he created a.

A

More powerful than a retired engineer.

B

Yeah so so much experience and it really created an amazing design and he worked on it with shounet. She did.

A

B

Bachelor project on this design, um and they actually you know, we have a design there. That is working really really well, and then this is published in the github of fifa 3d. This is just you know very recently, so this is why maybe she didn't publish it in the hub, but it's it's there and this design work is working really really well, but it's using gears. So it's not really customizable it's sort of a one size, but for the the you know it's it fits adults pretty.

B

Well um again, we haven't experimented it with it with users, but uh you know as a design. It's fully uh open for everyone. um The mechanical designs, work, design, works well and also the electronic design. There is, uh you know we try to make it as accessible as possible, also for the other model that I talked about it before. um But the idea is that we have a printed board and you know this day is printing a board.

B

You just order it online. It's it's five bucks for it's a very simple board. It's just two layers and all the the soldering is uh through holes. So there are no there's, no complicated soldering and it's just it's sort of. uh We call it legos, because it's we just take. You know these break up boards from polulu and different companies, and we take the esp and everything gets mounted on this uh board.

B

That created you know easy soldering, very cheap uh production and and pretty much accessible to everyone, and because it's uh we use esp, so it can, it has bluetooth and there is actually a an android app that you can download and control this hand, uh and this is working. So this is something that's already available on the github and I think for students. It's a it's a great platform.

A

Sounds wonderful, I would. I would really like to work on getting some of these into the enable hub if we can, because we have a device catalog there and I'd like to have them represented there. We can just you know we can link to your your github page for the files or what have you, but if we can get the information into the hub it'll make it much more accessible and easier to find, because you guys are doing so much great innovation out there.

A

I really, I didn't know some of this and I'd like to make it more visible uh to the community and and these days the the enable hub is the place to do that. I can help you to get it in there. If you can share the details with me and actually have a form set up where you can just kind of fill out the details for a design and share the links and all that and and that'll send me everything. I need to build out a page in the device catalog. So I can.

A

I can share that with you.

B

Okay, yeah. That sounds great. I think um you know. I think you need finished uploading everything, but I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's there and you know we'll be happy to see you know people anywhere using it. Yeah.

A

That's why I think yeah we don't have enough of those kind of powered uh devices. Those would be a lot of fun, especially like you said, for a classroom project that would be great.

B

Yeah, it's it's. uh We we're kind of trying uh to implement the insights from this. You know this model. You know it doesn't have a lot of the features that we want. You know the customizability the skin. You know it looks well, but it's suspicious. You know it you have it has just you know the one look and that's it. So we want this the ability to change the appearance. We want the ability to change the size uh we want the ability to to so you know uh it's not.

B

You know what we want, but it's definitely a step in the process and we try to incorporate the things we learned from that in our design. But, for instance, you know this. uh The gears they're 3d printed. It's not really a problem, but once you start changing the dimensions, it's not working. Well, you know tolerances and- and you start to have problems so.

A

Knowing knowing what you're trying to do here, it seems like you've developed a pretty good sense of what your goals are, um and you know that the design that you have isn't quite there yet you're working on it. Do you see a point in the future where you might start like, okay time to start from scratch and basically just build? You know new, a new design to build in these sort of concepts and capabilities, sort of with with fresh models and all that is that a path you might go down.

B

um So the the you know the skill in the skeleton concept is it started? You know it's pretty much started from scratch. Yeah.

A

You took ideas.

B

From the the model shanit made, which, by the way, also started from scratch, I.

A

Said: okay, so you're already doing this? Okay.

B

So the skin and skeleton this is why it's not ready we're trying to you know. You know, I think the you know the concept that's published in the the article that uh was published in the hub. You know this is everything we want. Everything is customizable.

B

Everything is, you know one click away this. This was the idea there, because we see you know all of us we're volunteers right. We don't have a lot of time to spend on customizing this device and.

A

B

It can take hours and hours right every time you customize. So it's a problem, so you know when the printer is working. If if the design is made well for printing right, usually you have a good printer and you have a good design. When the printer is working. You don't need to do anything right. The printer is working, not you. That's.

A

B

So this is, this is what we want, and this is why it's not working yet we we didn't really compromise on anything. Well, that's.

A

B

Yeah so, uh um uh but the the design that's currently on github has more compromises, but it works really really well for what it is.

A

Actually, okay, I think.

B

This is a great option.

A

It really sounds excellent, so I definitely would like to you know, share we'll share this video in the hub, but let's, let's share those files and let's get this added into the device catalog. Even if it's still a work in progress, it's perfectly okay, let's just get it out there and and start getting input from others. Maybe and people can start testing it and give you feedback, but um I you know just kind of thinking as a sort of a just in a very visionary future, far off kind of a way for a moment d.

A

You know the the latest model iphones, for example, have like a basic later, a lidar capability built into them, and you can do some. You know 3d scanning with the phones now and that's going to continue to improve. Do you see a day where we'd be able to take a smartphone and 3d scan a limb and use an app on the phone to analyze that scan and automatically generate the files for a custom hand, and that's.

B

Kind of a holy grail.

A

B

Yeah, definitely not we're not needing to build this scanner that we we talked about. Yeah, that's, that's, definitely a great dream and- and I I mean yeah- I mean the technology in our smartphone advances all the time and.

A

Yeah- and I mean I think the scanning is actually pretty close- the hard part is the software of analyzing that geometry and figuring out in an automated manner. How do you take a hand, design and modify the parts to fit that geometry and then export custom stls, if you, if we could figure out how to automate that customizing process? That would be amazingly powerful, but I do feel like that's still a ways off.

B

Yeah, it will require some work, maybe some markers to you know it to help understand where the risk is because every.

A

B

Is different, so we are actually starting to think that maybe for the 3d scan we'll do we'll mark the elbow joints and the different joints. That's.

A

A very good idea: yeah.

B

Yeah to to to actually you know, place them properly in the design, because, for example, for the the the case that I talked about previously, you know I can see by eye where approximately this is a amputation by trauma. So you can relatively see where the wrist was, uh because there is a thumb you can. You know understand what is what relatively and where to place it, but that you know we don't like things like right. That's.

A

B

um So so definitely you know maybe incorporating some markers uh it could be. Even you know if you use if you're talking about uh smartphones and stuff like that, if you have also the rgb camera, it could even be you know, stickers or something like that.

A

B

A dot with a marker doesn't have to be like a rigid, uh rigid body. That's.

A

Right yeah, I never thought about the markers on a scan. That's a really good idea. You know you see that when you um like there, there are apps where they'll like scanning your face to get you fit for glasses, or things like that and they'll they'll do the same thing: they'll. Have you mark the corner of your eye or mark a certain things like that? And it helps them to locate those features, and I never thought about applying that here. That's a really good idea to to help help identify the position of each.

A

You know finger joint things like that. Yeah.

B

So yeah as you, I think that your concept is gonna. Definitely it's feasible. It's just a matter of you know how many people were we're gonna. You know it's gonna work work on it, but I think the technology is not it's possible too far off yeah, yeah yeah, it's just a matter of you know really working on that. It's kind of uh with uh face recognition right. It's uh that's.

A

Right because it's.

B

A very important problem: you know a lot of people worked on it and now you have, you know the 3d scan of faces. They work a lot better than you know, maybe 3d scanning, I don't know sv or something that is simpler. Just because you know these cameras know how to identify the different features in our face really really well right.

B

So it's just a matter of you know making this problem important enough for people to work on it, and then you know it's going to be resolved.

A

Yeah yeah, that's that's a great point. Well, you guys are doing some very exciting work out there I'll share this video on the hub, so people kind of see and hear more about what you're up to and they'll they'll, hopefully share comments and ask questions there um and as soon as you have a chance I'll get you that link for the forum that I mentioned. So we can get some of this work into our device catalog on the hub. I'd love to share it there so.

B

Yeah sounds good. I mean yeah the the the powered uh design that you need to know that made. This is definitely you can definitely go there. I can also share the solidworks files for the you know, the body power design, the the.

A

B

One, um but it's not it's not working well enough, so it's.

A

B

A

It's entirely up to you whenever you're comfortable, sharing things, that's it's up to you guys, but when you're ready I'd love to get them out there, so yeah. Thank you so much for talking to me today, though, this is really uh great to learn about you've. Given me a lot of great ideas, things to think about, so thank you for that.

B

Yeah, I'm happy for that and yeah we'll be happy to you know uh be involved in whatever the community is working on.

A

Terrific we'll keep up the great work and say, thanks to the rest of your team, really appreciate you uh sharing this with us.

B

A

B

You soon yeah you too yeah bye.