Portable RehabActuators

PROBLEM: People experiencing finger -specific motor disabilities are often asked to participate in rehabilitation sessions, either within clinical settings or at home. Unfortunately, a lot of them (including me) do not execute the instructed exercises for finger strengthening and as a result their traumatised fingers may not fully recover back to their original potential.

SOLUTION: RehabActuators constitute a portable, soft robotic wearable that exploits tangible interaction to motivate patients to execute finger exercises like bending/unbending. RehabActuators turns rehabilitation into a playful activity, where the participant can manipulate its own finger by using interacting with the interface.

Computational Logic:

Told Design & Fabrication: 

Mechanism Overview:

Control Manipulation:

Interaction Demonstration: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ldiV7o1EZ_QfcC9cEiDaGpcplat2HtpA?usp=sharing 

Arduino + Motor Shield REV3

Arduino Wiring:

-Copper tape for the two capacitive sensors

-Peristaltic liquid pump

Arduino Code:

# include <CapacitiveSensor.h>

// Capacitive Sensors
CapacitiveSensor csLeft = CapacitiveSensor(6, 7);
bool csLeftTouched = true;
long csLeftVal;

CapacitiveSensor csRight = CapacitiveSensor(6, 5);
bool csRightTouched = true;
long csRightVal;

// water pump
const int pumpPin = 13; const int speedPin = 11; const int brakePin = 8;
const int cw = HIGH;
const int ccw = LOW;

void setup() {
  //Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(pumpPin, OUTPUT); pinMode(speedPin, OUTPUT); pinMode(brakePin, OUTPUT);

}

void loop() {

  capacitiveSensorLeft();
  capacitiveSensorRight();
  activatePump();

}

void capacitiveSensorLeft() {

  csLeftVal = csLeft.capacitiveSensor(80); // 80: resolution
  if (csLeftVal > 1000) {
    csLeftTouched = true;
    //Serial.println("left on");
  } else if (csLeftVal < 100) {
    csLeftTouched = false;
    //Serial.println("left off");
  }
}

void capacitiveSensorRight() {

  csRightVal = csRight.capacitiveSensor(80); // resolution
  if (csRightVal > 1000) {
    csRightTouched = true;
    //Serial.println("right on");
  } else if (csRightVal < 100) {
    csRightTouched = false;
    //Serial.println("right off");
  }

}

void activatePump() {

  while (csRightTouched == false && csLeftTouched == false) {
    digitalWrite(brakePin, HIGH);
  }

  while (csRightTouched == true && csLeftTouched == false) {
    digitalWrite(brakePin, LOW);
    digitalWrite(pumpPin, cw);
    analogWrite(speedPin, 200); // 200 is the rotation speed
  }

  while (csRightTouched == false && csLeftTouched == true) {
    digitalWrite(brakePin, LOW);
    digitalWrite(pumpPin, ccw);
    analogWrite(speedPin, 200); // 200 is the rotation speed
  }

}