In June, a designer built a fully functional microscope using only parts from Lego kits. Now, a man is venturing into the robotics side of the classic children's building toy.
Diavo Voltaggio -- who also goes by Dave -- showed off his homemade cyborg arm at Lego convention BrickFair in Chantilly, Virginia last week. The final product, which he calls Mark VI, is the sixth edition of the arm he's created in the past year.
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Voltaggio constructed the arm out of Lego's Mindstorms EV3 set. Using buttons he attached to the pieces, he is able to manipulate the arm's three fingers and one thumb. The arm can flex its appendages and even shake hands.
"It's actually pretty simple. ... Every time I touch a button, it causes the motor to close, and I release the button, it goes back and [the robotic finger] goes limp," Voltaggio said in an interview at BrickFair.
The Mark VI features LED lights and a smartphone cradle, although neither are necessary to the arm's functioning. Despite its simplicity, the machine sucks up quite a bit of juice: Voltaggio says he has to replace the batteries in the arm every hour or so.
Below is a quick demonstration of the cyborg arm:
Voltaggio said he's toying with the concept of expanding the robotic arm to a full body, but no solid plans have been realized yet.
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