Robotic hand can crush beer cans and hold eggs without cracking them

A robot hand with the ability to hold delicate objects and the strength to crush beer cans could be used as a prosthetic.

As reported by New Scientist today, a high-functioning robotic hand able to cut paper with scissors, hold eggs without breaking them and crush metal objects could be used in the future as a prosthetic hand or in robots using artificial intelligence to handle objects.

The robotic extremity has fingertip touch sensors. Each finger is driven by three motors which drive metal parts acting like tendons. Weighing 1.1 kg, the hand is 22 centimetres long and made of steel and aluminium.

Uikyum Kim at Ajou University in South Korea and his colleagues, who built the hand, say it can hold an egg without cracking it, pour drinks and crush aluminium cans.

The researchers also tested whether the robotic hand was able to use tools. It can successfully use a pair of tweezers to pick up and put down a computer microchip.

This automated hand able to pour drinks and crush cans is not the only way robots could take over the drinks industry. A robotic bartender can be programmed to communicate a drinks brand’s messages and uses AI to find out which cocktails consumers want.

Cecilia, a robotic bartender that mixes and serves cocktails, is targeting drinkers at hotels, airports, stadiums, casinos and cruise ships.

Consumers can tell her which cocktail they would like, or order it themselves by pressing a touch-screen, and tapping their contactless bank card or phone.

The cocktail is then mixed and made inside the machine, and dispensed into a glass.

Described as “your interactive bartender for every occasion”, each robot can be filled with 70 litres of different spirits, and can serve a whopping 120 cocktails per hour. Read more on that here.