The Backyard Brains Robotic Claw was our first exploration of prosthetics. To close the claw's appendages, the user had to clench his/her fist, which contracted the arm muscle, while relaxing the muscle opened the claw. This project used an Arduino paired with the Muscle SpikerShield, to which the claw and and electrode cable were connected, to control the claw. Instead of using the kit with the pre-uploaded code, pre-soldered board, and motorized claw, our task was to solder our own Muscle SpikerShield, upload the code, and design a new claw.
Before we got started on the claw project, we did some background research on the heart and how it functions. First, we watched a video that explained the anatomy of the heart and EKGs. Although it went into much more detail than necessary for the level of understanding that was required for this project, it was helpful to have an idea of what one of the most important muscles does in a person's body. The heart has a right/left ventricle, right/left atrium, and the tricuspid, pulmonic, mitral and aortic valves. These parts work together to make the heart beat and pump the blood to the arteries. EKGs record the electrical activity of the heart and it is the heart's conduction system that accounts for its movement. To wrap up the background information, we worked with the Sparkfun heart rate monitor and experimented with skin electrodes. Using the heart rate monitor Arduino example code and Processing IDE, we could see our heart rate displayed graphically. We followed this Sparkfun tutorial to set it up.