Design a Brain-Powered Prosthetic Hand

Overview

Have you ever wondered how scientists develop prosthetic hands that respond to brain signals? In this lesson, you'll step into the shoes of real biomedical engineers as you learn how to control a prosthetic hand using your brain activity!

This lesson follows a real Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) project conducted at Harvard iLab. Building on what you’ve already learned about servo motors, you’ll now control all five fingers of a NeuroMaker Hand using a BCI headband—just like cutting-edge prosthetic technology!

Project Duration

• 90 min if the NeuroMaker Hand is already built

• Up to 5 hours if additional setup or assembly is needed

Group Size

• 2-3 people per materials set

What’s Needed

• Charge the NeuroMaker BCI Unit.

• Check that your group has:

  • One NeuroMaker BCI Unit

  • One fully built NeuroMaker Hand

  • A computer with mBlock software installed

  • USB cables for connection

What Will Be Learned?

• Expand control of multiple servo motors using different attention states

• Connect Brain-Computer Interface technology with biomedical hardware

• Experiment with real applications of a prosthetic hand in assistive technology

Project in English

Project in Spanish (Coming Soon)