The Stabilizing Spoon : Self-stabilizing utensil to help people withimpaired motor skills

Abstract: The technology for assisting people who are functionallychallenged has improved over the recent decades. With today’stechnology, people with Parkinson’s disease can, witha device on their wrist, be able to draw pictures. Humanlimbs lost due to accidents can be replaced with bionic limbsand with help from smartphones, blind people can by audiobe informed what kind of object that appear in frontof them. These are a few examples where technology haseased everyday life for people with impaired functionality.The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how an Arduino microcontrollercan be utilized to help people with impairedmotor skills during their eating process. A prototype of astabilizing spoon was constructed to work under real circumstancesand intended to be a complement for peoplewho are in need of assistance during their eating process.To make this possible, a sensor with gyroscopes combinedwith accelerometers was used to identify which directionthe device’s handle was being tilted, as well as how fastits position was changed. Two servo motors were placedorthogonally to each other to establish a system of two degreesof freedom. With this setup, the spoon was intendedto maintain its spoon bowl in a horizontal position. Experimentalresults of the spoon showed promising performancewith some limitations.