Piano Playing Hand Bot

Musical sense has always been the domain of human beings and not robots. Sure they can do a lot of things that are useful to us, but they are not supposed to be artists. Or are they? The researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a 3D-printed robotic hand that can actually be classified as an artist.

The science project developed this robotic hand that can play simple musical phrases on the piano by just moving its wrist. Considering how many complex motions the human hand must make to play the piano, it is easy to understand just how difficult the robot was to conceptualize and create. Needless to say it’s a work in progress and will still be worked upon by the research team.

It was made by 3D-printing soft and rigid materials together to replicate of all the bones and ligaments in a human hand. No it does not have the muscles or tendons of a regular human hand and is very limited in the scope of what it can do. The mechanical design tried to give the robotic hand the widest range of motion possible and when you hear it playing the piano, you may be tempted to believe that it is actually a virtuoso.

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