MIT complains that designing a robotic arm is time consuming and takes a lot of repetition. They want to improve it using a unique method with a modular hand tactile sensor. They claim that it can reduce design time to minutes for many practical applications. For example, cutting paper. You can watch a video about the paper below as well as read the text yourself.
Each style of manipulator has a corresponding graph. The predefined elements allow you to combine a palate and special fingers. You distort the fingers to match the use of the hand. Then a sensor that looks like a mitten responds to work.
The output of all this is a kitting machine pattern for automatically generating STL files for hand printing and sensor methane. Some examples in the video are weapon-driven scissors, tightening a wing nut, and – the classic test for a robotic arm, picking up an egg. They also show a robot pouring liquid from a bottle, although someone first had to remove the cap to help it.
Finger joints include several finger tips and joints. Graphs show that any pieces can connect to each other in the same way that a compiler knows that any kind of thing can follow a number in a mathematical expression. The distortion process is also aware of the limitations of the 3D printer, so it creates practical shapes.
What do you want a robotic arm to do? With the right hand, they can finally make your 3D printing pen useful. Or take on your soldering jobs. We wonder, though, will robotics be a new 4th law? Do not run with scissors.