May 30th

Last friday (May 25th) we completed the prototype of our prosthetic arm.  Final touches on the prosthetic were made during the visit.  The final touches included smoothing out the putty that was used to fill in the hole and keep the barbell in place and making the prosthetic look more presentable.  The prosthetic shop was very kind and provided us with a sleeve containing a hand at the end to give the prosthetic a more "real arm" look.  The hand can be removed if needed to allow the other attachments tbe added.  In order to add other attachments a screw in top would have to be added and laminated at the terminal end. Overall, we are very pleased with the way that the arm came out.  Even though we couldn't meet our original plan of producing a functioning prosthetic arm, we are still happy with our results to produce a prototype.  We are looking forward to continuing our design and making future progress with it.

Picture of the finished prosthetic with the hand attachment
and the curling bar.

Picture of the prosthetic from a different angle.

May 23rd

Last Friday (May 18th) we returned to Scranton, PA to construct the prototype of our prosthetic arm. We ran into a bit of a set back when attempting to use our mold of Deepak's arm. We were told is was going to be extremely difficult and time consuming to use the mold due to the small size and resources available to us. If we had about 5 more weeks and $500 we may have considered, but instead we decided to use an old prosthetic as a starting point to build off of. With this prosthetic, we then drilled a hole approximately 3 inches from the wrist area in order to insert the bar bell:

Tyler Ryman drilling the hole into the prosthetic

The prosthetic after the hole has been drilled

After the hole was placed into the prosthetic, we then attempted to fit in the bar bell which would hold the weights in place:

Cody Bukowski fusing the bar bell with the prosthetic

Tyler Ryman helping fuse the bar bell

We then let the arm sit outside so that the resin could harden, allowing the bar bell to be firmly held inside the prosthetic. After the resin hardened, we scraped away the excess material in order to smoothen out the arm:

Allowing time for the resin to harden inside the prosthetic

Stephen DiBianca removing excess resin from the arm

We were only able to complete about 80% of the prototype during our last visit. We are revisiting next Friday in attempts to attach the screw in clamp and mushroom piece. Our hopes of building a usable prototype were not met, but we have built a prototype that will thoroughly demonstrate the goal of the prosthetic, and exemplify a very promising future of what we could further develop.

May 16th

This Friday (May 18th) we will be returning to Scranton, PA to work with the prosthetic shop owner on constructing a prototype for our arm. The owner, Dante Molino, has been generous enough to allow us to use the materials and equipment he has at his shop. Hopefully by this weekend we will have a working prosthetic ready for use.

Prototypes I & II May 9th

Prototype I (Ideal Prosthetic)

Prototype II (Alternative Prosthetic)

May 8th

Last week we met with Teaching Assistant Deepak Siromani about taking a mold of his arm that we could use to create our prosthetic device for weightlifting. He was very cooperative with us and we should be able to acquire the mold soon. The only problem with taking the mold is that we would need the help of a Professional in order to cut the cast off of the arm. We are hoping to work something out that would enable us to meet at a local facility that would assist in taking the cast. Once this has been completed we will set up another meeting with Wyoming Valley Prosthetic which will allow us full use of their equipment to physically make the prosthetic. Although we will be supervised we will have a chance to get some hands-on experience making a prosthetic device.

Prosthetic Attachments May 5th

Shroom Tumbler attachment from TRS Prosthetics.  We will be designing a piece similar to this to attach to the end of prosthetic that allows the wearer to be able to perform push-ups while wearing the prosthetic.  

Black Iron Master attachment from TRS Prosthetics.  This is a clamp that attaches to the end of the prosthetic that allows the wearer to grab dumbbells, barbells, and chin-up bars.  We will be designing a clamp similar to this to attach to the end of our prosthetic.

April 29th

Last friday (April 27th) we all visited the prothetic shop near Scranton, PA. We pitched him a couple of our ideas to see if what we have been designing would actually work. Although a couple were shot down, our main design caused interest; he told us we could make it a reality. Our first goal now is to find an amputee who we could take a mold of to use for the prosthetic. After we have our mold, we are going to return to the prothetic shop where the owner told us we could get our hands dirty and actually construct the prosthetic. Since they make all their prosthetics at the shop, the materials are available for us once we return. Once we finally take a mold we can schedule our next appointment in Scranton.