EESS Bio-electronic Interface - Merchiston Senior Engineering Team

Andrew Firth and Stewart Smith of the School of Engineering have been involved over the last year in mentoring a team of future engineering stars as part of the Engineering Development Trust (EDT) Engineering Education Scheme (EES). The team of 5 students from Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh were set the task of developing a “Bionic Hand” controlled by the human body. They designed a robot hand which used electromyography (EMG) to sense signals from muscles in the users arm to determine if it should be open or closed. Feedback from force sensors attached to the fingers of the hand allow the user to sense when closed around an item. At the recent EES Celebration and Assessment Day the team from Merchiston Castle School won the first prize for their outstanding project results.

Dr Andrew Firth: “The team from Merchiston Castle School deserve the highest praise for their work. We presented them with a very challenging project and to produce a working prototype, as they have, is exceptional. This is engineering at its very best.”

A video of the Bionic Hand in action can be seen here.

The team from Merchiston Castle School
The team from Merchiston Castle School