I was on the stilts a bit earlier today and needed something to take my mind off the walking, so I let my mind go to how the arms will work. This led to some math and anatomy thoughts about how long the arms should be (comparing femur and stilt lengths to humerus and forearm extension). I think I may be a bit of a geek, or maybe a Romantic. I’m leaning towards geek, actually.

I’ll start by saying when I can take a picture of the whiteboard that I wrote this on, I’ll post it. I think it actually does a good job of visually displaying everything. Messy, but everything is there.

Imagine my arm is hanging at my side and I bend my elbow to 90 degrees (parallel to the ground) and my palm is face up. At my wrist and near my elbow (on my forearm) has a manacle or clamp around it and the clamp is attached to a 2×2x40” piece of pine. This will make the arm long enough and fasten it to my arm so I can move it.

In my hand will be a dowel that will somehow box around my knuckles and connect to the 2×2. This will also help me move the arms and keep them stable. There will be a trigger on it that will actuate the thumb in the false hand. I can grasp the dowel with my fingers wrapped around it when I want to make a fist and just hold it with my thumbs to have the fingers straight.

Connected to each of my fingers (not thumb right now) will be a piece of wire (maybe I will have a glove in the box surrounding my hand). The wire will run from my hands to the false hands. When I draw my fingers into a fist, the false hands will, too. (Thanks, Nick, for the brake cable idea.) The thumbs will need to be done a little differently, something about a trigger much like a trigger trombone. The 2×2 will have all 5 wires fastened to it.

Hope this makes sense. Hook me up with some criticism if anyone gets a chance. Thanks again, everyone: I’ll try to get my sketches up in the next day or so.

—-FIG