Scary robotic hand detaches from its arm and starts grabbing objects on its own

It looks like something straight out of The Addams Family – a robotic hand with a mind of its own.

It leaves its arm and crawls across the floor.

Naturally, the internet is unsettled.

Mostly because we’ve all seen this film before, and it usually ends with ominous finger snapping.

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The robotic hand that operates on its own

Engineers at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne have built a robotic hand that behaves rather jarringly.

The hand normally sits on the end of a robotic arm. 

But when an object is out of reach, it doesn’t stretch or struggle. 

Instead, it detaches itself, drops onto a surface, and crawls toward its target using its fingers like tiny legs.

And if you’re an arachnophobe, you might want to look away, because this thing looks an unsettling amount like a spider.

When it reaches an object, some fingers switch jobs and grab it, while the others keep the hand balanced and moving. 

It can even pick up multiple items one after another – up to three – before turning around and reattaching itself to the arm like it’s all part of a normal workday.

The reason it can pull this off comes down to its shape. 

Unlike a human hand, which has a clear top, bottom, and thumb side, this one is completely symmetrical. 

That means it can grab things from any direction without twisting itself around or needing a wrist to help out.

Freaked out yet?

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This hand was designed to be weird on purpose

This wasn’t built to look scary. 

The strange design actually makes the hand more useful.

The EPFL team designed its mechanics and brain at the same time. 

How it grabs objects affects how it crawls, and how it crawls affects how many fingers it can realistically use.

They tested different finger layouts using a genetic algorithm – essentially letting the computer create the best version. 

More fingers might sound better, but extra weight slowed the hand down, so there was a sweet spot.

Each finger has four degrees of freedom, meaning it can bend both ways. 

That’s what lets a finger act like a leg one moment and a claw the next.

Behind the scenes, the robotic hand uses preplanned grasp options, motion systems that avoid collisions, and rhythmic movement patterns to coordinate crawling. 

Fancy stuff, all so it moves smoothly without face-planting.

And while it looks like something straight out of a spooky TV show, the goal is practical. 

A hand that can crawl into tight spaces, grab objects in hard-to-reach places, and work independently could be useful in things like industrial inspections or disaster response.

So we’ve gotta hand it to this robot – it’s pretty cool.

Still, if it starts tapping twice for ‘yes,’ we’re outta here.

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