using SCORBOT for disabled people

[kandyuee]

Hi there,
I am a sophomore in electrical engg at IIT Roorkee, India. I have been assigned a task of designing an utility for disabled people using SCORBOT robotic arm as my summer project. I also have access to Viewflex Software. I am thinking of using it to operate switches like turning on the lights or operating fan's regulator, or opening the door. Can someone suggest me some other utility. I have 2 give a blueprint of my objective very soon. Please suggest.

[Greg Needel]

I think that a good use of the SCORBOT would be to mount it on a mobile base (like a wheelchair) and making a simple user interface (joystick) to control it. that way you could still use it to turn switches on and off without having a useless arm mounted to a table to turn on the light. if there is a way you might want to check www.evolution.com they do a lot of vision recognition and you could program the arm with this software in C++ to recognize a light switch on the wall and then operate the switch. the only problem then is anyone in the wheel chair when they approach a light switch will want to flick it.


Here’s what i would do.'

Arm programmed to move a light switch either up or down. the arm is mounted on the wheel chair and using image recognition software to recognize if it is dark or light in the room and to find the light switches make it turn on the light when it is off...also don’t forget to make an override system/ kill switch just incase something goes haywire.



Note: I don’t know much about the scorbot system besides what it looks like and what a quick glance at google told me

[Astronouth7303]

Sounds like fun. Good luck!