roboglove-blog

[roboglove-blog]

Unit Economics

MSRP: $3,500 per glove

Cost to manufacture RoboGlove: $8,000

Cost of training for the glove: $1,000

Additional warranty costs per glove: $1,500

Year 1:

Manufacturing per glove: $8,000

Shipping: $15

Warranty: $1,500

Training: $1,500

X4 gloves per factor with 8 plants=32

 Revenue: $352,000

Costs: $112,480

Net: $239,520

Per Auto Facility with minimum of 4 gloves:

Revenue: $44,000

Costs: $14,060

Net: $29,940

Per Person:

 Revenue: $11,000

Costs: $3,515

Net: $7,485 

Year 2:

Manufacturing per glove: $8,000

Shipping: $15

Warranty: $1,500

Training: $1,500

X8 gloves per factor with 12 new plants=96

Revenue: $1,056,000

Costs: $337,440

Net: $718,560

Business Canvas

Summary

Our initial opportunity idea when this process started was immediately glass manufacturing companies. Due to a brainstorming session, we identified that employees for glass manufacturers must perpetually carry heavy equipment. From this observation, we called various glass manufacturing companies to ask about their pain points, which resulted in disappointing news as it was revealed that they don’t face repetitive hand stress because they use equipment that helps carry the glass. These interviews were key to our business decision making because it made us invalidate an industry we were planning to target. It teaches us that although brainstorming and observations are great, none of our intelligent opinions matter when contrasted with actual customer pain points. From then on, we knew we had to pivot. Due to a time urgency and the creative flame slowly dying down, we decided to revert back to the purpose of the Roboglove. Ultimately, we shifted back to the original intent of the RoboGlove, auto manufacturing companies. The only reason we even shifted from the original idea was because we wanted to find other applications that hadn’t been explored. Shortly we realized that we already research within the industry, but most importantly: customer validation from all the research and field tests that GM had conducted. Instead of reinventing the wheel, our new task was clear; how can we create superior value within the same industry as our competitor, Bioservo. Currently, we’re still exploring ways we can add additional value that would put is in favor over our Swedish rival. However, what we are clear on is the key pivot to the auto manufacturing companies.

[roboglove-blog]

Glove Manufacturing-Customer Validation

For our customer validation, we reached out to various glove manufacturers worldwide to see if they can produce the glove for us. Some of the manufacturers we reached out to are:

Olympic Gloves Private label glove manufacturer https://olympiagloves.com/pl/glove-manufacturers/

Cyient Mechanical manufacturing service http://www.cyient.com/services/design-led-manufacturing/mechanical-manufacturing-services/

Southern Glove Bob Hearst http://www.southernglove.com

Superior Glove http://www.superiorglove.com

We are still waiting to hear back from these companies to see if they can manufacture the glove for us. We will be actively following up with them throughout the next few weeks. Once we have spoken to them over the phone we can determine if we are on target with our revenue and costs model.

[roboglove-blog]

Key Partners

Our partners are at the core of making RoboGlove a success. Our main partners will be derived from our key customers, our manufacturing facilities, and any of our outside technical experts. In speaking with our NASA advisor, Jack James, he suggested that we have a technical personal as either a consultant or as part of the team full-time. It is essential that we have someone who is well versed in the highly scientific side of our product to help us work with our manufacturing facilities and order the gloves various components.

We will continue to maintain our strong partnership with NASA. This includes our advisor Jack James and our inventor Landon Bridgewater. We want to continue to have them be involved in the process and help us build up our network within the industry. 

Another key partnership we will be establishing is that with our glove manufacture. Not only must we have them combine the technical aspects of the glove and the software but also we need to master the fit of the glove. Having a strong partnership with them means we can deliver the glove to our customers more efficiently and save on manufacturing costs.

Our customers will be key to maintaining a strong market share throughout the U.S. For our initial target market, we will be going after auto manufacturers. Throughout the U.S there are over 14 auto manufacturing plants and 45 facilities. Having those auto manufacturers as partners will be key to expanding RoboGlove. For auto manufacturers, throughout the past few years, there has been an economic upswing. In 2016, Ford experienced a record-breaking first quarter, with revenue rising 10.9%. [1] Over the five years to 2017, revenue from Ford's US car and automobile manufacturing segment is expected to rise at an annualized rate of 4.0% to roughly $14.5 billion. [2] Not just with Ford but overall the entire auto manufacturing industry is expected to increase there sales production. This is largely due to economic factors such as consumer confidence and low-interest rates. [3] Automakers will continue to introduce new vehicles with fuel-efficient and technological capabilities, which is anticipated to fuel demand. Low oil prices have also benefited industry operators, reducing the cost of vehicle ownership. [4]

It is key that our customers are able to maintain profitable sales. We need auto manufactures to run a trial period of RoboGlove in their facilities. Once they see how RoboGlove can directly save them money by reducing the injury rate to their assembly line works (meaning less money they have to pay out) we need them to provide us with reviews and spread the word to those in the industry. Having an exclusive partnership with us means that we will always be readily available to service their needs as they come up without the fear that they are going to finding another provider from our competition. Having an exclusive partnership with us also means that we are able to provide them with on the job training and repairs to the glove if they give us that exclusivity.

Sources 1-4:

http://clients1.ibisworld.com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/reports/us/industry/ataglance.aspx?entid=816

[roboglove-blog]

Our Revenue Model for RoboGlove

Summary of Presentation:

In the U.S alone there are 14 car manufacturers with more than 45 assembly factories. [1]

We will be partnering with thirteen plants and selling twelves gloves per each partner agreement to sell 156 gloves to automobile manufacturers as our first-year market penetration for the automotive industry. While the other products available for wear fit well and decrease slippage between the hands and materials, none of the other gloves are capable of amplifying the strength of the wearer as the Robo-Glove can.

We will have a sales price of $4,000 per Robo Glove for the auto manufacturing segment. Our sales strategy includes upsales of an additional 3 gloves for $9,000. Training for the Robo-Glove will be at $1,000 and warranty packages of $1,500. Servicing will be listed for $150 and parts for $500. This aggregates to a total revenue per Robo Glove Sale of $7,150 potential.

With Robo-Glove’s unique technical specifications and the wide number of industries it can be designed for, there is a valuable opportunity to enter and expand into various markets. 

At current estimates, our price is significantly higher than any other product in our product universe, mostly because we have no true competitor. We will be conducting test trials in the various plants to identify field-testing sites and to determine the best way to receive and analyze feedback.

Citations:

1:http://www.gutenberg.us/articles/eng/list_of_automotive_assembly_plants_in_the_united_states

[roboglove-blog]

Our Relationships

In terms of our value proposition, not much has changed. We are still focused on lowering the costs to customers and reducing injury. Now we are just more focused on the specific industry that we are going to go after. Our next step is going to be determining the costs of the glove, our overall cost of entry, and our selling price to our customers. We have a rough estimative that the gloves sales price will be between $4,000-$6,000. Our main source of revenue will come from selling RoboGlove directly to business. We are a B2B organization and our customers are large manufacturing business. We are also planning to make additional revenues through software updates, training packages, extended warranties, additional parts, and maintenance visits.

In order to make our final discussion on what our target market is we needed to do more customer validations. Since we did not see enough of a need in the glass manufacturing market our team decided that we wanted to explore the oil and gas, construction, and healthcare market. 

Here are some of our customer interviews:

Bruce Floersheim Healthcare market

Bruce spoke about the rehab market route and how RoboGlove could be extremely successful if insurance companies would jump on board with the idea. Mr. Floersheim was a judge/advisor to teams for similar business plans. This is what he recommends: •    Identify a segment of the market that’s underserved –Gives credibility. •    We need to understand the technology well. •    Beyond understanding, you NEED to know understand potential segments for technology. Be prepared for “Have you considered?” questions  So you can answer with Yes. •    Do a great job at identifying all the competition out there. Then how your solution will fill a gap better, technology? simpler? cheaper? Be able to compare your solutions side-by-side. Do a Matrix to make the case of how our side is better. Overall Bruce doesn’t know anyone that is using a similar product to RoboGlove but knows companies wanting to improve performances of hands or others with injuries for physical therapy. 

Gil Castillo Houston Field Manager-Hanson’s Installations Construction 

Gil runs almost every millwork/casework operation in the Houston and surrounding areas. Gil works for Hanson Installations and works hand in hand with the crew. They lift heavy solid surface countertops that are very expensive and wood panels that are expensive as well. Most safety gloves are not universal so he ends up purchasing multiple kinds of gloves for different material. When he sees his workers lift solid surface countertops that weight anywhere from 200-300lbs he notices the slips and the damages that not having proper equipment causes. He sees how they stress their bodies to get the right positioning to lay countertop down in the right place. If they had a grip assisting glove he is positive that this would help reduce job cost in some sort of way and possibly making lifting a super expensive panel/ countertop much easier. Gil also mentioned that he would pay upwards of $800 for a glove. We did not hear back from our other contacts from the oil and gas industry and others in healthcare such as John Waldron, Case Manager at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. 

After conducting these customer validations the RoboGlove team came to a conclusion that we will be focusing in on auto manufacturing. Once we have acquired a strong customer basis in auto manufacturing we expect to expand to other industries who are heavily affected by Repetitive Stress Injuries such as health care, oil and gas, and construction.

[roboglove-blog]

How Are Our Customers Being Reached Now?

After talking with these individuals and assisting the pros and cons of each market we decided to target heavy industrial manufacturing, specifically auto manufacturers. We know from our previous customer validation call with GM that there is a proven market in auto manufacturing. We know that GM is heavily interested in supplying as many of their 44,000 assembly line workers with RoboGlove as possible. Based on this validation we believe that we can target other major manufacturers such as Ford and Tesla.

RoboGlove is positioning itself to be a B2B, direct sales organization. We manufacture and sell our goods directly to companies. Are critical elements (metrics for success) are the relationships we build with our customers as well as our sales teams success.

As of right now, many auto manufacturers are still being approached by a direct sales team. In addition, companies like GM and Ford are allowing new innovative companies to submit their ideas directly through their websites. [1] This multi-step process allows for these auto manufacturers to increase their efficiency while also being able to look at the entire pool of innovation. Ford asks for a submission of your new idea in 300 characters or less along with a detailed description outlining how your idea works in 1,000 characters or less. [2] RoboGlove will be reaching out to companies like Ford through this process as well as through our direct sales team.

We want to create customer demand as well as being able to integrate RoboGlove in their daily routines by allowing these auto manufacturers to test RoboGlove in their faculties for a trial period. This way they can see what the benefits are for their workers directly. We intend to get customer interviews on how the product has benefited workers in the factories so that our sales team can create demand through these customer validations as well as get real data on the benefits of RoboGlove through our customers. We are hoping to use evangelism marketing or word of mouth to create a strong following within our target market. Our demand is mainly derived from our sales team, trial periods, and websites. All of these channels will feed into each other and act as resources for our customers.

Citations:

1 and 2: Nancy Wagner "How to Sell an Idea to Car Corporations." Chron.com. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/sell-idea-car-corporations-81306.html.

[roboglove-blog]

This Is What We Thought, What We Have Learned, And Where We Are Going

When we were first conducting our customer discovery process for RoboGlove we believed that window and glass plant manufactures would be an ideal market segment for us to go after. On September 29th, the RoboGlove team was able to take a tour of the manufacturing plant for Showcase Window and Door’s, a custom window manufacturer located in Houston, TX. Our trip was lead by Bill Lindsay who was the General Manager for the manufacturing plant. Bill showed us the various stages of the assembly line process and gave us industry insights on how their business is evolving with technology. Most of the stations were done with a worker loading up a piece of vinyl into a machine to either cut it or assemble the various components. The vinyl itself was very light even in large quantities so we did not see a need for RoboGlove at these stations. The final station was putting the glass into the vinyl window. Since they are a custom window manufacture this step had to be done by workers manually. This station was the only one where we could see a need for RoboGlove. We managed to talk to the workers who were at this station about RoboGlove and any on the job injuries they faced. Most problems they talked about had more to do with them cutting themselves on the glass than their hands hurting. Bill also mentioned that they are trying to automate the stations that require manual labor in the next few years.

After seeing the actual manufacturing process and talking to the workers who were on these stations, we realized that RoboGlove did not have as much application as we thought to this specific industry.  Once we learned that we needed to figure out a new target market for RoboGlove in order to test our hypothesis we decided to do some market research. We researched industries that had significantly high hand and figure injuries and discovered that the construction, medical, oil and gas, racecar, and weight lifting industries could all be potential fits.

Hand and finger injuries are consistently trending in the oil and gas industry. Historically, hand and finger injuries make up nearly 50 percent of incidents in the oil and gas industry and at some facilities, that number is closer to 80 percent of all recordable incidents. In addition to oil and gas being a top contender for having the highest injuries, the construction industry paid out nearly $1 billion dollars in workers’ compensation claims from 1997 to 2005.  We are currently in the process of interviewing individuals from all of these industries to test our hypothesis and to see if RoboGlove can be a solution to their problems.

1-Shahram Vatanparast | Jan 03, 2016. "Hand and Finger Injury Risks in Oil and Gas Industry." EHS Today. May 23, 2017. Accessed October 04, 2017. http://www.ehstoday.com/hand-risks.

2-Identifying High-Risk Industries for WMSDs. Accessed October 04, 2017. http://www.lni.wa.gov/Safety/Research/Wmsd/IndRiskWmsd/Default.asp.

[roboglove-blog]

What We Have Learned

When examining the two customer segments, our team learned that RoboGlove does not offer enough customer benefits to the Autoglass Installation market to continue perusing this segment. On our numerous customer calls with Autoglass Installation companies, we learned that their biggest issues were outside the realm of what we could provide for them.

By mapping out all of the benefits we could potentially offer our customers we learned that Window Manufacturing companies had more problems that RoboGlove could potentially solve. The big issue we believe we could help these customers with is the manual transportation of products. Due to the weight of the glass, in order to successfully transport products from station to station workers need additional strength and grip. By reaching out to more customers about this issue, this could potentially lead to RoboGlove finalizing its target market.

[roboglove-blog]

Customer Fit

Autoglass Technicians: 

Gains solved by RoboGlove 1) Job Security-Better health, more efficient, reduces job costs, saves money, less payout of workers compensation 2) Satisfaction-Better health, more efficient 3) Skill-More efficient 4) Customer relationships

Pains solved by RoboGlove: 1) Weight of glass-Reduces injuries, provides additional force, assistive grip, relief of pressure 2) Precise installation-Precise and dexterous when used 3) Injuries (due to lack of strength and grip)-Reduces injuries, provides additional force, assistive grip, relief of pressure 4) Breakage 5) Multiple people-Provides additional force, assistive grip, and relief of pressure

Window Manufacturers:

Gains solved by RoboGlove

1) Reducing costs-Reduces job costs, saves money, less payout of workers compensation, more efficient 2) Profit-Reduces job costs, saves money, less payout of workers compensation, more efficient 3) Safety-Better health, less payout of workers compensation 4) Fewer lawsuits-Better health, reduces job costs, saves money, less payout of workers compensation 5) Employee moral-Better health 6) Providing for customers 7) Market share

Pains solved by RoboGlove

1) Job injuries-Reduces injuries, provides additional force, assistive grip 2) Cost of labor-Reduces injuries 3) Transporting goods-Provides additional force, assistive grip, precise and dexterous when used, relief of pressure 4) Breakage 5) Less productivity from people out of work-Reduces injuries 6) Weight of final products-Provides additional force, assistive grip, relief of pressure

[roboglove-blog]

Value Map

RoboGlove: Gain Creators-Better health for users, reduces job costs, saves money, less payout of workers compensation, reduces insurance claims, more efficient

Products/Services-Force reducing glove, customizable software, maintenance services on glove and software, customizable size of gloves, customizable modes on glove

Pain Relievers- Reduces injuries (especially with Repetitive Stress Injury), provides additional force, assistive grip, precise and dexterous when used, relief of pressure

[roboglove-blog]

Customer Profile

Autoglass Technicians: 

Gains-Skill, job/career, satisfaction from job, customer relationships, job security  1) Job Security 2) Satisfaction 3) Skill 4) Customer relationships

Jobs-Moving glass from truck to customer’s car, installation of glass, helping others with moving glass, transportation of glass from warehouse/store

Pains-Cuts from glass, size of glass, breakage, job injuries (especially neck and shoulder), weight of glass, precision of installation, multiple people need to get involved with transportation of glass 1) Weight of glass 2) Precise installation 3) Injuries (due to lack of strength and grip) 4) Breakage 5) Multiple people getting involved

Window Manufacturers:

Gains-Market share, profit, providing for customers, employee morale, safety, fewer lawsuits, reducing costs 1)    Reducing costs 2)    Profit 3)    Safety 4)    Less lawsuits 5)    Employee morale 6)    Providing for customers 7)    Market share

Jobs-Ordering supplies, delivery of products, sales and marketing, supply chain, various stations of production that could require manual labor, installation of products, inserting various product details and customizations, shipping and delivery

Pains-Transporting goods, job injuries, cost of labor, transportation of products, less productivity from people because they are out of work, final products weight, breakage, moving product throughout the manufacturing process 1)    Job injuries 2)    Cost of labor 3)    Transporting goods 4)    Breakage 5)    Less productivity from people out of work 6)    Weight of final products

[roboglove-blog]

Who We Talked To And What We Learned

Showcase Windows & Doors:  Gerald W. Bodzy-President

Gerald W. Bodzy serves as President of Showcase Windows & Doors, Inc. a window manufacturing plant located here in Houston, Texas. On our call with Gerald, we learned many interesting facts about the window manufacturing business. Gerald gave us an overview on how a window is produced. Most of the actual manufacturing process is done by machines except for a few stations which require manual labor. These stations that require manual labor are mainly associated with heavy lifting and the installation of grids. In order to install the various grids on a window, the workers need to lift the window up horizontally and manually install the grids. As the glass takes its shape to develop into a window, it becomes heavier and heavier throughout the process. The window is at its heaviest state when it is loaded on the truck by workers. This creates Gerald’s biggest problem of transporting for the final products. On our call, we also learned that over ½ of all his windows that he produces need to be hurricane grade. That means that they are even heavier than normal windows and require greater strength/force by workers. 

Lonestar Glass:  Rachel Ramirez-Technician 

After talking to Rachel Ramirez from Lonestar glass, we gathered a lot of information about the residential glass business. Lonestar does not manufacture the glass but just gets it ready, transports it, and installs it. They transport all their glass using glass racks that are then put on trucks. If put on the rack correctly, the glass will rarely ever break during transportation. The glass gets put on and taken off the truck using manpower. Depending on the size, different manpower and equipment are needed. For large pieces of glass, there will need to be multiple people and large suction cups being used to lift the glass. Lonestar sells a variety of different types of glass from shower doors, mirrors, specialty glass, and much more. For a frameless shower door, it would require two people to carry it but for tiny pieces of window pane glass, it only requires one person. One of the biggest jobs Lonestar has done, required 12 people with 12 suction cups to carry a thick 14ft long glass dining table top. All of their work is mostly manual labor from cutting the glass by hand to polishing and transporting.

Bobbitt Glass:  Nicole Chevalier-President

We talked to Nicole Chevalier, President of Bobbitt glass. We learned that they also use glass racks and trucks to transport their glass. Their biggest glass piece weighs about 200 pounds and they transport them every day. Typically, there are two people carrying the glass on each side and one in the middle using a suction cup to lift the glass. A typical day for an employee is installing 2 showers and 4-5 mirrors a day. They are similar to Lonestar Glass in many ways, in that all of their work is done mostly by hand and by offering a wide variety of glass types. 

Safelite Glass: Maurice B.-Lead Technicians 

This call was with Maurice B., who is one of the lead techs at this auto glass repair shop. They fix windshields, side windows, and chips. Typically they fix from 8-15 windows per person in a day. Safelite has created tools for their techs to use that makes their job easier. It typically takes one person to install a window. They use a cart to actually move the glass across the floor. When asked if they see injuries at all for installers or themselves, he told me that there is a lot of neck and shoulder injuries which surprised me. They use their head when setting the glass to hold it in place. Even though this is an injury, not the one I was hoping for. Maurice doesn’t typically have any forearm or grip problems.

Garland-Fields Glass and Window: Lori L.-Owner

This call was with Lori, one of the owners of Garland-Fields. On the call, she told us that there are different challenges they face when installing windows vs replacing the glass. For installing windows, the windows come on a frame so they are not straining to an installer and have nonexistent injury ratios. Their main challenge is improper size and rotten walls. For glass, which is prone to injuries, they usually are in the form of scratches and wounds. They operate in contracts, and therefore could not give me a number of daily or weekly windows installed.

Service King Mark M.-Operations Manager

On the call was Mark who was an Operations Manager at Service King. He spoke about how Service King employees struggle the most with installing automobile glass on the passenger door. The reason was the grip required a fine movement while still maintaining a strong grip. The normal suction cup did not provide the fine movement required to install the glass for the passenger doors.

[roboglove-blog]

What Are The Big Problems With Customers?

On our call with Gerald Bodzy, President of Showcase Windows & Doors, he told us that his biggest problem was moving the finalized window products from the transportation cart to the truck for delivery. Since these products are often heavier and require greater amounts of both strength and force, he often needs two workers to assist in loading the glass from the cart to the trucks. Not only must he have two workers load the glass, but they must also go with the truck driver to the delivery site to unload the glass. Gerald said that having two workers load up the finalized products is a significant investment versus just having one worker. Our hypothesis is that RoboGlove can help one worker increase his gripping strength and eliminate the need for a second working saving Gerald money. 

On our call with Lonestar Glass and Bobbitt Glass, their biggest difficulty they faced was with transportation and breakage. More specifically, manufacturers not delivering their products on time and causing for later deliveries or employees not placing the pieces of glass correctly in the glass rack causing them to fall out and break.  

From talking with Maurice from Safelite, the only issue he saw was from neck/shoulder stresses when setting glass. When they would set the glass into the car door, they would use their head to hold the glass in place. This was the main cause of any injury. 

[roboglove-blog]

Our Hypothesis

RoboGlove provides assistive grip that will lower costs to companies, lower insurance claims, and decrease lawsuits by reducing injuries associated with repetitive strain injury.

[roboglove-blog]

Value Proposition

RoboGlove serves to reduce stress and injury on repetitive hand-related labor by providing grip assistance and additional exertion of force onto an activity. We provide a safety cushion for all employers to reduce insurance claims and health costs while increasing employee retention rate due to additional safety measures.

[roboglove-blog]

History & Creative Story

In the not too distant past, GM and NASA teamed up to develop RoboGlove. The collaboration between NASA and GM began when the two paired up in 2007 on the Robonaut 2 (R2). The Robonaut 2, which in 2011 became the first humanoid robot in space was the original inspiration for RoboGlove. When the collaboration between GM and NASA began on the Robonaut 2, one of the design requirements was for Robonaut 2 to be operational around humans. The team achieved an unprecedented level of hand dexterity on R2 by using leading-edge sensors, actuators, and tendons comparable to the nerves, muscles, and tendons in a human hand. The Robonaut 2 was the basis for the technology used to create the RoboGlove, which was used during a nine-year collaboration between GM and NASA.

RoboGlove was designed to help workers in auto factories and astronauts reduce their risk of repetitive stress injury. When you continuously grip an object for a long period of time over and over again, you can cause fatigue in your hand muscles that could lead to permanent damage down the road. With the use of RoboGlove, you can increase the amount of force exerted on an object by upwards of 25 pounds.

Looking more into the manufacturing industry, we realized excessive manual labor with one’s hands could cause much-unneeded stress on the body leading to hand pain or severe injuries. Upon further research, we realized our product would be perfect in lending a hand to this cause by being able to relieve the pressure on one’s hand significantly. Most companies that engage in heavy manual labor end up with high injury rates or equipment breakage. Our company wants to give companies who do frequent manual labor, a chance to reduce employee turnover and the chance for lawsuits.  RoboGlove wants to help companies save costs who would have otherwise had to spend enormous amounts of money on the aftermath of employee injuries.

Get a grip on your life with RoboGlove.

To see more check out this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs2zTC0FoS8

1- Dunbar, Brian. "Robotic Technology Lends More Than Just a Helping Hand." NASA. April 13, 2015.  Accessed September 21, 2017. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/robo-glove.html.

2- Brian. "Robotic Technology Lends More Than Just a Helping Hand." NASA.

3- Brian. "Robotic Technology Lends More Than Just a Helping Hand." NASA.

[roboglove-blog]

Product / Service Description

Our product is a grip assisting device that is worn on the hand of the user. The glove is essentially a robot on your hand. Embedded into the glove are actuators that provide grasping support human fingers. The fingertips of the glove have pressure sensors sewn in, to give it a sense of touch so the glove can sense when a user is grasping an object. When the user is grabbing something the synthetic tendons automatically retract, pulling the fingers into a gripping position until released. It currently weighs around two pounds and currently powered by a lithium-ion battery worn on a belt that can power two gloves for up to eight hours.