This Daredevil Plays the Five Finger Fillet Game With a Robot Arm!

Would you play the five finger fillet with a robot arm?
Kathleen Villaluz

Who here remember playing the five finger fillet knife game? It's a classic bar game that will never get old especially when everyone in the party has had one or two drinks. If you would play the knife game with an intoxicated person, would you then play it with a robot arm? This brave soul courageously stretched out his left hand as a Staubli TX40 robot held a sharp knife and casually played the stressful game with him.

This group of daredevils play the knife game in what looks like a workshop where the Staubli TX40 is firmly placed behind its worktop. They draw a hand outline on a cardboard where a player can rest their hand and the robot knowingly stabbing the in-betweens of the outline trace.

I suspect that this robot arm is programmed to stab at only distinct points. From the video, the arm stabs with a fixed pattern and the distance from one stab to another must have been perfectly calculated and synchronized to deliberately miss the player's hand.

The robot starts off with a slow, gentle motion as the player's friends advise him not to move his hand. Then the robot arm controller decides to speed up the stabbing motion and gives off a satisfying laugh when the player's stress levels start to build up. A big sigh of relief is released when the robot finally halts the stabbing motion.