Fabrication of flex sensor

Firstly, we need to fabricate the flex sensor in the form of below given
structure

To fabricate, we need the following tools.

1. Single strand wire 2.wire stripper 3.sketch pen 4.scissors 5.aluminium foil
6.insulation tape 7.conductive foam
For the fabrication of three number of flex sensors follow the procedure below.

A) Take the aluminum foil and mark it for the dimensions 1cmx9cm and cut. Make
sure we have 6 such pieces.

B) Now take the conductive foam and mark it for the dimensions 1.3cmx8cm
and cut. Make sure that we have 3 such pieces.
C) Now cut the single strand wire into 10cms and strip it completely with the help
of wire stripper. Make sure we have 6 such wires.

D) Cut the insulation tape of 10cms and then attach 1 more same piece to it as
follows.
Now place the wire on it with a part of it
projecting outwards.

Then, place the aluminum foil over it and stick it.

Make 2 such assemblies.

Now place the conduction foam on one of it.

Place both of them one over other and bind them using insulation tape. Your flex
sensor is now ready.
Fabricate 3 number of flex sensors in the same procedure.
 Testing Servo Motor using Arduino

1. Take 3 one-pin connectors and we need to connect one end of the connector
to the 3 pins of servo as shown in below figure. The other end of pin
connectors will be connected to the Arduino board.

2. Now connect the ground pin (Brown color wire) of servo to the ground
on Arduino.
3. Similarly, connect the voltage pin (Red color wire) of servo to 5v on
Arduino board and connect signal pin (Yellow color wire) of servo to
pin number 9 on Arduino.

4. After completing the connections of the servo to Arduino, connect the

Arduino board to USB port of your system using Arduino cable as
shown in below figure.
5. Once you connect the Arduino to your system, the Arduino board will
be powered.
6. Now, open the Arduino software and go to Tools. Select the port option
as shown in the below figure.

7. Now, go to File > Examples > Servo and select the sweep program on the
software as shown in below figure.
8. Click on the upload option (highlighted below) to apply the program on
Arduino board.

9. Now the servo connected to the Arduino board will start to rotate its
arm through different angles based on the program. The highest angle
being 180 degrees. Similarly test the other servos for working.
 Setting Flex Sensor to the Glove
Take the 8core cable and remove Black and Brown cables from it as shown below,
keep them aside we will use them later.
Now split the wires up to 5cm on both sides.
Strip both the ends of wire with wire stripper and make them as 3 pair of
two cables. This will be connected to the 3 flex sensors.

Connect the first pair of wires to the two terminals of the flex sensor and do
same connection to other two pairs with flex sensors. Insulate the connections
with insulation tape.
Note: Please make sure that you are connecting and insulating them properly.
Any misconnection will not give appropriate output to your project.
Take the 3 single pin connectors (male to male) and cut them into 6 equal halves.
Strip the free ends of the connectors with wire striper.
To the other side of 6core cable, connect the stripped single pin
connectors with the help of an insulation tape as shown below.
Next wear a glove to left hand and place the flex sensors on the ring finger,
index finger and thumb finger, tape them properly as shown.

Congratulations now your Glove embedded with the sensors are ready.
 Interface the Flex Sensor to Arduino
Take two single pin connectors, connect them to Bread board as shown
below. We will connect the other ends of the connectors to 5V and GND pins
on Arduino.

Take 10 k.ohm resistor connect the two ends as shown in the figure.
Make sure that one end of all resistors are connected as shown in the below picture.

We have 3 sets of single pin connectors to the glove, fix them on the bread board
as shown. Please note that all the single pin connectors should be in the same
row as resistors in the breadboard.
Leave a one pin gap after each resistor and connect the pins.
Now take 3 single pin connectors, connect one end of each in the empty pin that we
left between resistor and connector from flex sensor glove as shown.

You just setup a voltage divider circuit.

Connect voltage (5V) and ground (GND) pin connectors from bread board
to voltage (5V) and ground (GND) pins to the Arduino board respectively.
Connect the analog pin for sensor 1 (red wire that we placed between the
resistor and flex sensor connector) to the analog input pin A0 on Arduino board.
Similarly the analog pin for sensor 2 to A1 and analog pin for sensor 3 to A2.

Now we will review all connections.

 Design of Animatronics Hand

To make the Animatronics hand, take the coroplast sheet and place
it horizontally.
Now place your hand over it and mark the outline of your hand using sketch.
Cut it out as per the marking and mark front and back for reference as
shown below:

Now at the backside of the hand and mark all the fingers and cut only the
upper layer (half of the entire section) of coroplast as shown below: This will
give flexibility to your hand to bend.
Now we are going to make tunnels, take a coroplast and cut along the line and
make sure all the sides of the tunnel are flat as shown below:

Now cut the tunnels into two different sizes of smaller 1 cm (one tunnel) and
larger 5 cm shown below:
 Now paste the tunnels on the backside of the hand as shown
below. Make sure that the tunnels pasted near the tip and the palm
must be horizontal, the tunnels in between must be vertical.

On the Front side paste all the tunnels vertically as shown below.
 Now cut a coroplast piece that has at least 8 to 10 tunnels, make a size of
1cm height and paste it at the bottom on the front side as shown:

Take a rubber band and cut it as shown below.

Now place the hand with its back face in top and tie the rubber band to each
finger by tying knots properly not being so tight or so loose.
In the same way tie the bands to all the fingers and cut the extra portions left at
the knots.

After tying the rubber bands take a Coro-sheet and mark a line at half of it and
draw one more line at a distance of 10 tunnels and mark 2 cross lines as shown.
After the marking is done, now cut it in that shape and after that we need to
make 3 slots for the servo motors each of dimensions 1.3cmx1.3cm
Add the super glue and fix the hand with the front face on its top as shown below.
 Fixing Servos on Animatronic Hand
1. First, fix the arm of servo to the servo using small screws as shown in
below figure. Similarly prepare the other two servos.

2. Enlarge a hole in the servo arm using a scissor as shown in below figure.
3. Now, fix the servos at the slots in the armature of animatronic hand as shown
below.

4. Take a nut and thread and pass thread through the nut and tie a knot.

5. Now, pass the other end of the thread through tunnels in the fingers of
Animatronic hand as shown in figure.
6. Once you pass the thread through tunnels, then pass it through the bridge
that is bottom of palm of the Animatronic hand.

7. Repeat the same procedure to remaining fingers.

8. Now, take the free end of threads passing through index finger and
middle finger and join them together by making knot
 9. Then, cut one of the thread after the knot and pass the end of remaining
thread through the enlarged hole in the servo arm as shown in below
figure.

10. After passing the thread through the servo arm, pull the thread such
that it is tightly stretched and tie a secure knot.

11. Similarly, combine ring finger and little finger and tie its ends to middle
servo arm. Finally tie the end of thread passing through the thumb to
the remaining servo.

Note: - Make sure that all the threads pass through bridge before being tied
to the servo arm as shown in the below figure.
12. Now take brown and black two-core cable (which are already kept aside)
and 4 single pin connectors (2 red and 2 black).
Cut single-pin connectors into two equal halves, strip all the ends of the
two core cable and single pin connectors.
Now we have 4 red and 4 black connectors as shown below.

13.Now take 3 single pin red wires, join their ends and connect with brown
wire of the two-core cable.
The other end of the brown wire should be connected to the 1 single-pin
red wire.
Similarly connect 3 single pin black wires, join their ends and connect with
black wire of the two-core cable.
The other end of the black wire should be connected to the 1 single-pin
black wire as shown below:
Now take the Animatronics hand which is fixed with three servos.
Pick the previous wire which has three red wires connected to two-core
cable and connect each of the wire in voltage supply pins(middle one) on
each servo. Similarly, connect the end which has three black wires to ground
pins in the servo motors as shown:
 Now connect the red and black single pin connectors on the other end of
the two core cable to the voltage and ground pins on the breadboard.

Take three single pin connectors and connect to signal-pins on each of the
servo motors.
Now Connect the other end of the three signal-pin to PWM.
The thumb servo to pin 9 PWM.
Index finger and middle finger Servo to pin 10 PWM.
Ring finger and little finger servo to pin 11 PWM.
 Programming the Animatronic Hand

After completing the fabrication of the Animatronic hand, apply program on the
Arduino software to test Animatronic hand by using the following steps:

1. Open the Arduino software and go to Tools. Select the port option
as shown in the below figure

2. Write the below given program on your workspace window.

#include<Servo.h>
Servo servo1;
Servo servo2;
Servo servo3;
int a=A0;
int b=A1;
int c=A2;
int val1=0;
int val2=0;
int val3=0;
void setup()
{
servo1.attach(10);
servo2.attach(11);
servo3.attach(9);
servo1.write(0);
servo2.write(0);
servo3.write(0);
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop()
{
val1=analogRead(a);
val2=analogRead(b);
val3=analogRead(c);
Serial.print("Value1 ");
Serial.print(val1);
Serial.print("\t");
Serial.print("Value2 ");
Serial.print(val2);
Serial.print("\t");
Serial.print("Value3 ");
Serial.print(val3);
Serial.print("\n");
if(val1<900)
{
servo1.write(180);
delay(20);
}
if(val1>900)
{
servo1.write(0);
delay(20);
}
if(val2<900)
{
servo2.write(180);
delay(3);
}
if(val2>900)
{
servo2.write(0);
delay(3);
}
if(val3<900)
{
servo3.write(0);
delay(3);
}
if(val3>900)
{
servo3.write(180);
delay(3);
}
}
3. Now, click on the verify option on the menu bar as shown below figure.

4. Then, click on the upload icon to run the program as shown below.
Testing Animatronic Hand
After uploading program on to the Arduino software, follow the below steps
to test your Animatronic Hand.

1. Click on the Serial monitor option on the software as shown in below

figure.

2. You can see the resistance values of all your flex sensors here. Each
column represents the value of the sensor attached to your gloves.
 3. When you fold one of the finger attached with the flex sensor, you can
see a decrease in the resistance value coming from it in the serial
monitor window. You can also check for other values by folding
remaining fingers.

4. Now you need check for the value coming from each flex sensor and
modify your program accordingly. This will ensure that your
animatronic hand works in coordination with your hand.

5. For example, as you can see in the below picture that the constant
value you are getting is in the range of 600 and when you fold the
corresponding sensor, you are getting less than 100. So you can
modfy the program with the condition of >100 – servo position should
be 0 and <100 – servo position should be 180. Similarly check for the
remaining flex sensors and modify the program accordingly.

Congratulations your animatronics project is now ready. Show off to everyone!