  One important vision of robotics is to provide physical assistance by
manipulating different everyday objects, e.g., hand tools, kitchen utensils.
However, many objects designed for dexterous hand-control are not easily
manipulable by a single robotic arm with a generic parallel gripper.
Complementary to existing research on developing grippers and control
algorithms, we present Roman, a suite of hardware design and software tool
support for robotic engineers to create 3D printable mechanisms attached to
everyday handheld objects, making them easier to be manipulated by conventional
robotic arms. The Roman hardware comes with a versatile magnetic gripper that
can snap on/off handheld objects and drive add-on mechanisms to perform tasks.
Roman also provides software support to register and author control programs.
To validate our approach, we designed and fabricated Roman mechanisms for 14
everyday objects/tasks presented within a design space and conducted expert
interviews with robotic engineers indicating that Roman serves as a practical
alternative for enabling robotic manipulation of everyday objects.
