A student team from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Massachusetts, won first place at the third annual Cornell Cup USA for the development of a robotic prosthetic hand. The team took home the $10,000 grand prize for the IrisHand, a semiautonomous robotic prosthesis capable of using an advanced vision system to determine the most appropriate finger positions for grasping an object. The team members, Sean Casley, Deniz Ozgoren, Thanacha Choopojcharoen, and Adam Jardim, graduated in May with bachelor’s degrees in robotics engineering. They developed the hand as part of their senior capstone project.
The IrisHand allows for more grips than similar prosthetic devices, which are limited to 24 preloaded grips, and simplifies the user input to two commands: open and close. “Our prosthetic hand does a lot of what your subconscious would do with your natural hand,” said Casley. “If you’re reaching for a cup or an object, you don’t have to actively think about where you need to position your fingers. We wanted to mimic this behavior.”
Casley said the development cost for the prosthetic hand was $1,700 and that the team is hoping to keep the sales price under $20,000. A provisional patent on the concept was filed last month through WPI’s Office of Intellectual Property and Innovation.
The Cornell Cup USA is a college-level design competition for student teams to invent innovative applications of embedded technology. This year’s competition, held May 2 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, featured 34 finalists from more than a dozen institutions.
Editor’s note: This story was adapted from materials provided by WPI.
