A DIY Cardboard Robot Hand

Ever since I was a kid I loved making and putting random things together. I would build Lego and screw random pieces of wood together. Last week I was introduced to instructables with its project and contests. I saw this one and thought this is a good way to get my feet in the water. So this is my first and easy submission.

For this project you will need:

Cardboard

Straws

String

Zip ties (optional)

Tools:

Scissors

Glue gun

Xacto Knife

The first step to make the cardboard hand is, well, your hand. So take a pencil or some sort of marker and outline one of your hands on the cardboard. Make sure you also outline the joints also.

After outlining your hand, its time to cut. Not your actual hand though, so cut the cardboard outline and leave the joints untouched.

While making this I forgot to outline where the straws will go, so put in between the joints. Note, that circle below the thumb will be cut out later.

It's now time to bend those joints! I would recommend a ruler to use while bending so you don't bend it too far and break it.

After bending the joints, we now have to cut and glue. Cut the straws to the appropriate size that the outline shows. It's very important that you leave the tip of the fingers unglued of straws. While you're at it, cut out a straw size hole below the thumb, this will come useful later.

Grab a nice thin piece of cardboard that you can grip nice and firm. You then want to fold it so you can make a square, then glue it together. After that, glue it again, this time glue it to the bottom of the forearm part of the cutout. This will help support the cardboard hand.

What you first want to do is go back to the hole that we made below the thumb. You want to squeeze in a tiny cut straw and glue it in there. Now flip the hand so now you see the back. You want to put straws on the thumb side and accordingly place where I have it.

I lied about step 7 being the last time we fiddle with straws. For this step put the strings in the straws we glued. Have one end of the string at the tip of the fingers, and the other at the grip. Now if that's all done, glue a small piece of straw to the tip of the finger. This will secure it.

Now if you tried closing the fingers with the string, you might've noticed the arm itself moves and bends. We don't want this. So add some support on the forearm with more cardboard, or pop sickle sticks, I've heard that might help.

We're almost there so stay with me. You have the choice of using the string itself, or zip ties with this. Since I did it with zip ties, I tell you that one first. First, pull the string into the zip tie and make sure that the zip tie is above the gripper. Then make sure the zip tie is about the size of your finger. Lastly, cut off any remaining pieces of string or zip tie that's still attached. How many times did I say zip tie? For the string method you just want to glue the string to itself, then make a hole the size of your finger.

Have fun picking up random things around the house! I hope you enjoyed my first instructable. I will also be learning how to 3D print soon, so expect me making some pretty cool things in the future.