Benjamin Choi, a 17-year-old high school student in Virginia, has created a robotic arm that can control his mind during his free time during an epidemic.
About 10 years ago, Benjamin Choi watched a 60-minute documentary on mind-controlled prosthetics.
In the video, researchers insert tiny sensors into a patient’s brain to move hands.
He has been interested in such inventions ever since.
Since then, he has set up a table tennis court in his basement as a makeshift laboratory.
In 2020, Choi was a tenth grader and spent the summer researching aluminum fuel.
But during the epidemic, the lab was closed, giving Choi much more time.
As time went on, he created a low-cost artificial hand using a $ 75 3D printer owned by his sister about 10 years ago.
The 3D printer used by Choi is a small machine that can only print devices no larger than 4.7 inches.
He took many parts over time and was able to assemble them into a prosthesis.
After creating the prosthesis, Choi wrote code with his previous experience of writing robots and programs to make the prosthesis work.
In the past, two sensors were used to detect electrical currents in the brain called electroencephalography (EEG) to eliminate the need for surgery.
One of the two sensors is mounted on the ear and the other on the forehead to receive EEG data from the brain.
About six people, along with Choi, spent about two hours each helping to build the artificial intelligence AI.
The AI is capable of learning, and Choi teaches the robotic arm to distinguish and sense waves from the brain.
To make AI work, Choi added 23,000 code snippets, 978 math pages, and seven new sub-algorithms to the chip.
After about 75 repetitions in two years, Choi’s robotic artifact was engineered to withstand a weight of up to 4 tons.
The designs currently on the market are just 73.8% accurate, while Choi’s prosthesis is 95% accurate, according to Smithsonian magazine.
While today’s robotic arms cost thousands of dollars, Choi’s robotic arm costs just $ 300 and could quickly hit the market in the future.
Choi is not just interested in creating this robotic arm, but wants to build more machines in the future for people who can not talk to wheelchairs.