Morten Grønning Nielsen (above), who has just graduated with a masters in design at London’s Royal College of Art, has created a powered glove that allows the wearer to carve wood and stone using their fingertips.
The glove, called Happaratus, has been created as the Danish designer’s graduate project on the Msc in Innovation Design Engineering course at the RCA. It is designed to “augment the human hand as a crafting tool, by increasing its power and capabilities”, according to its creator.
In a press release, Grønning Nielsen said the original inspiration for the glove was to have a closer relationship with the materials he was working with, and to speed up the process of “prototyping” new product and design ideas.
But he now sees the device as having a wider appeal, “disrupting” traditional work processes in several fields, including architecture and restoration.
“The scope of this invention is now much broader than I first imagined and I see it as a disruptive tool that enables artisans to interact with materials in a new way,” he said.
“There has been interest from other potential markets such as the cleaning industry, and I’ve had a couple of surgeons who were interested in whether this could become a tool for bone and dental surgery.”
“There has been interest from other potential markets such as the cleaning industry, and I’ve had a couple of surgeons who were interested in whether this could become a tool for bone and dental surgery.”
Morten Grønning Nielsen
He also highlights its use in restoration projects, for instance in stripping away old surfaces.
The tool allows the wearer to rub away material using motorised abrasive pads mounted on the glove’s fingertips. There are two motorised abrasive pads, which have evolved from an electric kitchen knife, on each of the glove’s thumb, index and middle fingers, that oscillate to carve away the surface touched.
The movements are powered by a motor mounted on the back of the hand, connected to a gearbox closer to the fingers. A knob on the side of the gearbox can be adjusted to control the speed of oscillation of the pads, which are each linked to the motor by a wire.
The pads can be changed to allow the wearer to work on a range of materials and create a variety of finishes.
Grønning Nielsen has himself created a wooden speaker stand and a concrete lampshade using the tool, and the designer has already given it to other three other craftsmen/designers to experiment with.
“What they have in common is that they need to have a really agile, manoeuvrable tool that they don’t have at the moment,” the designer told Dezeen.
“You can make as many different bits as you want. I could have some that are really strong and aggressive for stone carving for example, or others that can be used for detailed furniture restoration,” he continues.
A patent for the design has been filed.
