Trial of IT Education Centering on Motion-Control Technique of Robot Hands

As part of the undergraduate curricular reform at our university, we have begun offering on a trial basis a workshop course in which we introduce the concept of barrier-free engineering. There, the students partake in a group design project with the aim of creating a robot hand that can ‘communicate’ by movement; the long-term goal from the faculty research standpoint is to realize a robot hand capable of sign language. This attempt is discussed in terms of the issues of engineering education, certain technical issues pertaining to the introduction of a new ‘robotic’ concept, and in terms of its societal implications particularly as a component of IT.