Updates: 3/12/2008:

First let me say that if you are an engineer and a father a great "toy" for both you and your kid(s) is the Snap Circuits kits from www.elenco.com (available at Radio Shack for a premium price). We bought the Jr. kit as my son is only 4 and he and I have already made all 101 circuits in one day. I have since ordered the Extreme kit which should offer all kinds of experiments. it just arrived today :D I recommend you get the Extreme first.

Now back to my gripper controller project. I have decided to continue improving the design some more. Most all my friends that have seen the video have commented that the motion looks too jerky and that it's not obvious that my hand is controlling the position of the servo. To address these I am going to modify the code to only update the servo position at 5Hz even though the A2D is being read at 20Hz. Furthermore, the servo position will only move +- 1 each iteration. I may change this based on the actual movement I see of course. As for the second issue, I'll just shoot a better video and maybe add some explaining :) I also plan to add in another sensor to control the gripper opening and closing the same way.

Forward,
Jay