DangerFinger v5 Beta with web builder

The new DangerFinger is picking up steam; all the firm parts are complete, and printed – I’ve been wearing and loving it for the last couple weeks!

TLDR; it’s working, there’s a preview of the web interface, and I’m promoting it to version 5 (Beta). Read on for a video and geeky details.

This is now the first model to have NO metal, all parts are 3D printed (except the tendons, elastic cord and fishing line). The design is streamlined and easy to build, with less required measurements. It snaps together easily with no tools required other than initial model clean-up and sanding to ensure smooth fit. I can’t wait to finish everything, but am excited to share the progress so far~

I’m still wrapping up code for the flexible socket and fingertip, but it works unchanged with the previous build. In the meantime I’ve taken a diversion to work on new ways to help people configure, preview, and build the project more easily. Given the luxury of writing this latest version in the Python language, I was easily able to add a web interface to the project.

First, I used the python tornado module to create a web server with REST APIs that allow for discovering the available parameters, loading or saving a configuration back to the server, generating previews, and rendering high-quality STL files.

I added a docker file to the DangerFinger github repo, with ubuntu linux as the base, python3 and dependencies along with our finger code, and the latest OpenSCAD binary for rendering. This docker container is automatically built on dockerhub after each checkin, which is then pulled to AWS EC2 FarGate for execution.

Finally, I whipped up a quick web UI using the ViewStl javascript module and some javascript to call our APIs back on EC2 and retrieve parameters and finger models. You can’t yet render custom models or save STLs, but there’s a lot of momentum – check for those updates soon.

Check it out here!