The evaluation of robotic hands is a subjectively biased, complex process. The fields pertaining to robotic hands are human-centric in nature, making human hands a good standard for benchmark comparisons of robotic hands. To achieve this, we propose a new evaluation index, where we evaluate robotic hands on three fronts: their form, features and performance. An evaluation on how anthropomorphic robotic hands are in basic mobility, and appearance constitutes the “Form”, while features that can be read, changed and actuated for effective control of robotic hands constitutes the “Features”. We derived these key features from an extensive analysis of robotic hands in literature. Finally, the robotic hands carry out a series of tasks that evaluate their “Performance”. An individual score for each category is drawn and we carry out a three-pronged analysis. We also propose an additional feature in the form of price to provide context when analysing multiple hands.

With the increased demand for customisation, developing task-specific robots for industrial and personal applications has become essential. Collaborative robots are often preferred over conventional industrial robots in human-centred production environments. However, fixed architecture robots lack the ability to adapt to changing user demands, while modular, reconfigurable robots provide a quick and affordable alternative. Standardised robot modules often derive their characteristics from conventional industrial robots, making them expensive and bulky and potentially limiting their wider adoption. To address this issue, the current work proposes a top-down multidisciplinary computational design strategy emphasising the low cost and lightweight attributes of modular robots within two consecutive optimisation problems. The first step employs an informed search strategy to explore the design space of robot modules to identify a low-cost robot architecture and controller. The second step employs dynamics-informed structural optimisation to reduce the robot’s net weight. The proposed methodology is demonstrated on a set of example requirements, illustrating that (1) the robot modules allow exploring non-intuitive robot architectures, (2) the structural mass of the resulting robot is 16 % lower compared to a robot designed using conventional aluminium tubes, and (3) the designed modules ensure the physical feasibility of the robots produced.

Design education prepares novice designers to solve complex and challenging problems requiring diverse skill sets and an interdisciplinary approach. Hackathons, for example, offer a hands-on, collaborative learning approach in a limited time frame to gain practical experience and develop problem-solving skills quickly. They enable collaboration, prototyping and testing among interdisciplinary teams. Typically, hackathons strongly focus on the solution, assuming that this will support learning. However, building the best product and achieving a strong learning effect may not be related. This paper presents the results of an empirical study that examines the relationship between product quality, learning effect and effort spent in an academic 2-week hackathon. Thirty teams identified user problems in this course and developed hardware and mechatronic products. This study collected the following data: (1) effort spent during the hackathon through task tracking, (2) learning effect through self-assessment by the participants and (3) product quality after the hackathon by an external jury. The study found that the team effort spent has a statistically significant but moderate correlation with product quality. The correlation between product quality and learning effect is statistically insignificant, suggesting that for this setting, there is no relevant association.

The design of service robots is typically treated as a mechatronic design problem aimed at implementation of its core technical functionalities. Intuitive operation and usability are ignored. We developed a trash-picking service robot with a strong focus on human-robot interaction (HRI) using the double diamond framework. The HRI-focussed hardware features were successfully implemented and tested. The results were shown to satisfy the ease of operation and usability requirements set as development goals for the robot.

The evaluation of robotic hands is a subjectively biased, complex process. The fields pertaining to robotic hands are human-centric in nature, making human hands a good standard for benchmark comparisons of robotic hands. To achieve this, we propose a new evaluation index, where we evaluate robotic hands on three fronts: their form, features and performance. An evaluation on how anthropomorphic robotic hands are in basic mobility, and appearance constitutes the ``Form'', while features that can be read, changed and actuated for effective control of robotic hands constitutes the ``Features''. We derived these key features from an extensive analysis of robotic hands in literature. Finally, the robotic hands carry out a series of tasks that evaluate their ``Performance''. An individual score for each category is drawn and we carry out a three-pronged analysis. We also propose an additional feature in the form of price to provide context when analysing multiple hands.