Tawan, Indonesia first homemade bionic man. Is he ?
Tawan, or Sutawan, or Wayan Sumardana, a 31 years old indonesian in Nyuh Tebel Bali, who created a bionic arm for himself out of junk, that he said controlled by his brain ring that reads the pulse of brain electric signal.
Wayan Sumardana is a welder, works at his place in Karangasem, a 2 hour drive from popular Denpasar/Kuta tourim spots.
The story became from his loosing of his right hand control of stroke, wife and kids are needed money. Tawan created his arm from scrap metals he found when working as welder. From this very scrap metal he created his version of bionic prosthetic right arms. A piece of scrap sponge is attached to the bionic arm shoulder pad. Used gears, pipes, cables are all over this bionic hand. He explained that his scalp head ring that control is similar with lie detector he saw in the nternet. So he started to built it just to work. Nothing fancy like 3d printing and complicated stuffs. His goal is nothing more than to help him working, welding. He doesn’t have any scientific university degree, he learned all from the internet.
As this machine completey work based on the lie detector, Tawan explain that the detector is work based on the lie detector signal. He has to lie to create pulse in his head-band attached lie detector. He bought this lie-detector device from his fellow Russian, that bought him the detector as much as 4,7 million Indonesian Rupiah, or some US$350.When the lie detector detect a lies from his brain EEG, it will send pulses that amplify the beep sound with sound amplifying he got from Junk radio unit that attached to his back unit. This amplify the signal to higher power and voltage to transfer to micro-controller (arduino ?) that commanding the mechanical pneumatic and motor hand to move the artificial hand.
With no more other goal than keeps him working, he may just think if this is possible so then could helps other.
A test from Bali Udayana university reveals that the bionic arm meets the criteria being a bionic/mechanical movement arm.
What still in question is the way Tawan controlling his bionic arm. With mind controlling bionic arm, this will opens new worlds of bionic arm technology that may not yet achieved.