Assembling a Robot that Uses Hand Gesture Control to Expand my Knowledge in Robotics

Growing up, I have always been fascinated by things related to robotics and technology. Where based on my own experience, technology has always been an essential tool in my life and is capable of making difficult tasks easy to do. Even though I always thought about it that way, I never took robotics seriously and I figure that it was just too difficult and just let other people do it. I wasn’t really open-minded back then even though my dad has always been supportive when it comes to me trying out different types of tech tools and even convinced me to try and develop a robot of my own. Then I figure learning somewhat advanced robotics and making it into my personal project would be a good idea. The goal of my project was to do something related to technology, though it was not clear at first the idea suddenly came to mind which is, to learn about robotics and computer coding to further my knowledge, then create a robotic arm controlled by hand gestures. Since robotics have a quite broad range of topics and knowledge, the thing that interests me the most is its complex problem-solving skills and decision making. The statement explains that I will be furthering my knowledge on how to code and to understand robotics in order to make the final product which is the robotic arm, where it will be controlled using hand gestures that are captured by the camera. I feel like by doing this personal project, it can open up new opportunities for me particularly in the field of robotics and coding. Being a person that I am with much little experience in robotics and coding I would probably say that this project is a highly challenging goal to achieve due to the little time that we have together with the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has altered our ways of living and made it hard to meet face to face with experts that could give advice regarding my topic. The best thing that we can do to get advice from them is by setting an appointment online. Also, this project will rely heavily on research since I have to go deep into the internet, and need to understand how the coding language works that is essential in my personal project which will be really difficult.

Global Context

The project involves creating and connecting electrical components, I figure that choosing Scientific and Technical Innovation as my global context would be the perfect fit, where I will explore how humans use their understanding of scientific principles and develop my engineering skills throughout the process. My project will include a lot of thinking and will also put my understanding of scientific principles to work where most likely I will also develop my problem-solving skills and even boosts my self-esteem and self-confidence since for this project I am doing something that is out of my comfort zone.The global context for my project is personal cultural expression. In creating an urban contemporary LP that contains Indonesian traditional music, I will be developing my artistry and craft. Because musical expressions are often unstructured and open-ended, I will be using my own personal taste and judgment in conveying emotions, feelings, and vision into each instrumental song in my LP. Since I will be using my music production skills, I plan to improve on my digital craft with a technique that requires meshing urban genres with musical tones from Javanese traditional instruments. Lastly, in producing the LP, I will personally express my appreciation for my Javanese heritage and my love for urban contemporary music, which shows the relevant use of this global context.

Product

My personal project as planned consists of two products which is the robot and a video showing how the robot is made. . By using my knowledge in robotics and research, I was able to succeed in making the arm move as I intended, but due to the lack of my coding skills, I was forced to make an adjustment to the robot.. The original plan for the robot was to use a camera which will send data to the robot depending on the hand gestures that it will detect, but as I said that idea failed due to some technical error that I found on the serial port on the device. Apparently, the Arduino doesn’t detect any of the commands that were sent through the Python program via USB. Instead, I decided to have an alternative plan which was to control the robot by using a glove. The video shows the process in creating the robot. It will provide information on how it is built, the materials used, price, explanation on why I used flex sensors for the project, and the estimation of how long it would take to make one, if anyone would want to try and to make it themselves. It will also show some of the problems that were encountered and how to overcome them by providing an alternative solution to make it work. It also includes tips in making a robot from an expert that I interviewed.

Reflection

Upon completing the project, I was able to improve my robotic and coding skills, and also my skills in problem-solving, risk-taking, and creative skills. This personal project of mine was solely focused to expand my own knowledge. Before doing all this I thought that making a robot would be that easy and people would just follow instructions from the web, get the parts, and that’s it. That mindset that I had before was completely false, and now I’m glad I experienced it myself so that I now know how hard it takes to make a robot that would even function. There was also a significant turning point for the product where initially the robot was supposed to be controlled by using a camera which then the plan was changed on the day of the testing due to some technical error that I encountered forcing me to alternate the way of controlling the robot, but with this alternative plan, I was able to make up for my mistakes where I was able to change the way of controlling the robot by using a flex sensor and still uses the hand gesture idea. That conflict probably is the most intense experience that I encountered since my initial plan was not working as planned. From this project not only did I develop new skills, but I also got a better understanding of my global context which is Scientific and Technological Innovation. By understanding how science is linked with the making of the project and creativity the global context shows that our learning that we do in class is something that we eventually would come across in this case physics where it has to do with its laws.

IB Learner Reflection

As a student studying in an IB school and able to complete my personal project product, I am confident to say that I have developed a lot of skills along the way, including these IB Learner Profiles. There are actually three profiles that are probably the most distinguished out of all the other IB profiles which are thinkers, risk-takers, and communicators, and the reasoning of it is because my project involves a lot of actions which are linked to those three profiles. Thinkers is the main skill that I developed, where I needed significant information in order to process the working of my robot and to apply and make critical decisions, resulting in the product to work in its most convenient way possible and in completing its task. Where also it involves a lot of planning and overcoming unwanted obstacles that are encountered along the way, and to set things straight this profile basically sets out to be my base layer of this project operation making it very critical in its playing role. Risk-taker (courageous) is the second important profile where it helps me to improvise, so that I can right some wrongs, since my project is all about making a robot it involves a lot of risk taking, problems would occur at any time in the making. If a step fails I can be more aware of that problem and learn what I should do differently so it wouldn't happen again, even though most of the time taking risks is unpleasant in some cases it could actually be for the better. The third profile that I used the most frequently is communicators. Making a robot is no easy task especially by yourself and often in my case I would need help due to my lack of experience and knowledge in robotics. By being able to communicate, that itself is probably the key in order to solve a dead end which by asking people that have more experience