This Disembodied Hand Is All the Robot You Need

What happened

Researchers from ETH Zurich have turned an off-the-shelf robotic hand into a completely self-contained robot that walks on its fingertips while using those same fingers to manipulate its environment. Besides making the perfect Halloween accessory for anyone planning to dress up as a member of The Addams Family – who were famously accompanied by a disembodied walking hand called Thing – the researchers say the approach could make it possible to operate controls and handle objects in places a traditional robot arm can’t reach.

Soft Robotics Lab, ETH Zurich/YouTube Amirhossein Kazemipour , a Ph.D. candidate in the Soft Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich in Switzerland who led the project, believes this hand could prove useful in contexts like fiddly maintenance tasks in industrial settings, or in search and rescue, where a robot could detach its hand to explore confined spaces too tight for the rest of its body.