Palestinian university students design robot controlled by glove

Computer engineering students Mohammad Zyoud, Mohammad Atiyyeh and Suhaib Tawafsheh spent eight months working on the self-funded project which cost them around 150 USD.

By REUTERS
Updated: JANUARY 28, 2016 18:37
Palestinian university students design robot controlled by glove
Three computer engineering students have designed for their graduation project a robot that can be controlled using a special glove.
The trio are studying at Birzeit University in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The smart glove has sensors and other electrical devices that send messages to the robotic car to move.
The speed and direction of the car's movement is dictated by the movement of the hand and the fingers of the person that is wearing the glove.
Computer engineering students Mohammad Zyoud, Mohammad Atiyyeh and Suhaib Tawafsheh spent eight months working on the self-funded project which cost them around 150 USD.
Tawafsheh said that the most important component of this project is the sensors that are part of the glove.
"The sensors collect sensitive data about the hand's movement with its different speeds, the fingers' movement and everything else. Then it collects the data in a special frame using a micro controller and sends it via Bluetooth to the receiver. The receiver does not have to have a special kind, any receiver can receive the data and analyses it according to its need and reacts according to this data," he said.
Many items needed for the construction of the project were not available in the West Bank, and the students had to order many of them online.
At times, they had to wait months for some of the items and some were never delivered.
Mohammad Zyoud said that there just isn't a market for some of the items that they need for their projects.
"There are no users or customers that buy these electrical pieces. No one is interested in importing and selling these pieces in the Palestinian market," he said.
Mohammad Attiyeh said he hopes the technology for robot and glove can be used in a wide variety of applications in the future.
"We hope that it becomes a special platform that we can use in different devices not only for robots and Windows (computer) and this is what we are working on now," he said.
The three students are in contact with a technological hub in the West Bank, hoping to develop the product and take it to the Palestinian and international market.