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There's definitely a huge benefit in simplicity.
It's extremely hard to control a hand or a gripper that has extra degrees of freedom.
What we've been able to start testing, is that even with having this fairly simplistic gripper,
we're actually able to pick up some of these sort of smaller, more delicate objects.
The biggest thing we're trying to test here with the robot,
is how it deals with fine motor skills.
Checking the dexterity of the arm, and the gripper itself.
It's surprisingly difficult to manipulate small objects.
Or to maneuver the arm into very small spaces.
Even though we have a gripper that as mechanically simplistic as ours,
we're still able to do a lot of fine motor manipulation and fine manipulation of objects in the environment.
Many times when you're trying to grab something large or bulky,
you can just take the arm and move it right into place.
However, if you're trying to do something like folding a towel, for instance,
or moving, bowls, plates, forks or knives, and putting them into drawers,
you need much finer motor control.
Having pressure sensors on the finger tips gives a much better sense of how hard we're grasping objects.
And if we need to start grasping it firmer or softer, or if we're on the verge of possible crushing a water bottle.
We're also looking at ways of calibrating the robot,
to make sure the arm is actually going where we want it to go.
Because, to pick up small objects, we need to be within millimeters of the object itself,
in order to actually manipulate it.