Yep, in engineering design should be solution oriented. You don’t ever really want to first design the form and then try and see what solutions it may be able to solve.

A robot arm is a great start, you can then customize it further to your needs with different terminal end devices.

The main benefit of human hands is that they have an amazing amount of sensory input. If someone gets peripheral neuropathy and loses even a modest amount of that ability they can barely tie their shoes.