Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello:
My daughter is doing a project about Motorizing a Robot Hand,is her first time working in it , I bought 5 servo motors for each finger , but I need to know if I need to buy 5 more servo motors for the movable joint or no?? Thank you

Hello nimichichi!

I looked over the project design, and it's probably best to use just the 5 servo motors. Each of the five will control the movement of one finger- it will manage all of the movable joints on that finger. So, in the same way, if you wanted a robot hand with six fingers, you would need six motors; if you want five fingers, you need five motors.

Good luck, and hope this helped!

Thank you for your help -Vysarge

You're welcome! If you have more questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thank you, I have another question, is necessary to buy jumper wires to connect the servo motors to the microprocessor board or I have to connect it directly to the microprocessor board??

I think you attach it directly; each of the servos should have three wires coming directly out, colored red, black, and white/similar light color. Each of those needs to connect to certain ports- the red wire is positive, the black wire is negative, etc, if I'm remembering correctly. [[This site]] provides a pretty detailed description of how it works, and I'm sure you can find other tutorials online if that one doesn't work- try searching "connecting servos to a microprocessor" or "controlling servos from a microprocessor."

Hope this helped!

Thank you very much, it is useful to me and my daughter.