DIY iPhone Rockband-Playing Robot Fingers
Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode
Feelin’ lazy? Don’t want to actually play iPhone games yourself? Well then, you can make yourself one of these DIY iPhone Rockeband-playing robot fingers that will take all that hard work and hand-eye coordination out of the equation!
The iPhone touch screen isn’t like most PDAs. It uses a capacitive touch screen. More info about that HERE. It would seem that the iPhone is looking for a finger sized touch, from living flesh. According to the link, the screen actually looks for changes in electrical current. I had some conductive foam laying around, its usually used for shipping sensitive electronics. If I put my finger behind the foam and pressed on the iphone screen, it works. If I used something non conductive, like a plastic pen, the foam would do nothing to the screen. My solution to this was to put thin copper wires into the foam (I also used these wires to attach the foam to the servos) the other end of the wires were wrapped around the handle of an exacto knife. When the Robot is playing the game I touch the handle of the exacto and the robot fingers are able to press the screen.