I extended the Duke Techxite Discover Engineering Bionic Arm to include an arduino controlled servo to mimic a reflex arc.

Duke's Techxcite Bionic Arm discover engineering module contains five activities culminating in wiring a "touch sensor" (paper clip switch) to the end of a "bionic" arm model made of balsa wood, tape and paper clips.  With the advent of inexpensive arduino microcontrollers, I asked myself, "Why not have the switch turn on a servo motor?"

 

I designed this prototype to show how it might be done.  Three 6th grade student teams were able to complete their bionic arms in a 90 minute block period using their existing knowledge of balsa wood arms, circuits, arduino code, my fritzing diagram and this arduino code.  Ausgezeichnet, meinen studenten!