Prosthetic Personal Statement

Most parents as they near the due date of their child are filled with excitement and happiness; however this could not have been further from the truth with my parents. My parents were informed by the doctors and that my lungs were collapsed because my intestines had pushed up into my thoracic cavity though a hole in my diaphragm. Then only option was to deliver me two weeks prematurely and perform immediate surgery. The outlook was bleak; through the lifesaving intervention a surgeon, I survived. This has impacted the choices I make in my everyday life throughout the years. I don't take opportunities or people for granted, and I realize everything I am able to experience is thanks to the skill of the surgeons in the operation room that night. This has

While participating in the robotics competitions, I discovered my passion for robotics. Even after the initial team separated, I continued helping new members, based on my previous experience and new-found knowledge. In the future, I want to continue the legacy my grandmother and mother have given me and continue to strive for excellence, helping my country and the rest of the world by the hand of technology and

Prosthesis is a term used for replacing a human body part which has been damaged or cut accidently with an artificial one. Hybrid prosthetic limb is a combination of mechanical and electrical circuit in which a controller gives command to electrically driven motor for the gripper opening and closing. Signal for the gripper opening or closing is acquired from the other shoulder movement. A strap on the shoulder is tied to a string which switches on or off the limit switch to give a trigger signal. This trigger signal actuates the motor in the gripper to perform open or close operation.

This invention has given a chance for survivors to feel whole again giving them enough confidence to go back to their normal lives. Although the main purpose of this is for the disabled, it still has a significant contribution to the technology used in robotics, mainly because it allows engineers to understand how our body moves. An application of this technology can be seen with planetary rovers or deep sea submarines, where the purpose of it is to gather data from extreme environments. This science can also be further developed to create humanoid robots that can be used to push the boundaries of science and imagination revolutionizing how people

A major impetus to improving artificial limbs started when the United States encouraged companies to improve prosthetics instead of munitions (Norton, 2007). The combination of lighter materials and robotics assist has created huge advancements in functionality and has dramatically improved quality of life and potential for independent living. Even with the advancement of these limbs, the basic mechanical principals are still the same. Modern times allow for many different types of limbs to be created. Limbs can be created to match skin tone, freckles and fingerprints. There are three many ways a limb can be made to move. The first is attaching the limb to a moving body part to act as a gear shifter. Another variation is a motor attached and the person can switch modes by a mechanical toggle shift. The most advanced movement is the myoelectric capability. This is when electrodes are placed on the muscles of the residual limb. When contracted the arm will move according to which electrode fired. A microprocessor can also be attached to learn exactly how the person walks (Clements, 2008). Modern prosthetics offer valuable life skills, yet are very

I remember stepping through the door into the robotics room, I didn't know what I was getting into and what impact it would have on my life. Robotics became my life for the next 4 years, constantly spending every moment of my free time investing it in robotics. I found my passion; to learn, with a desire to make the team better by passing my knowledge down to them. Robotics taught me countless valuable lessons and skills that shaped my life. Every day I acquired new skills and techniques to improve the robot, exponentially increasing my comprehension of engineering. Learning how to use tools, create mechanisms, and basic fundamentals of engineering; I began to work up the ranks of the team. Starting once as a clueless freshman I earned the

Her goal is to enter the field of biomedical engineering to eventually create an exoskeleton type prosthetic for legs that works with the existing human nervous system. Her inspiration for this comes from her family. Her mother is a military trained electrician and has shared her fascination of physics and engineering with Alex. Her father is a colonel in the the military and has worked with wounded warrior foundations. This influenced Alex to work with those who have severe trauma to their nervous systems. Last, her own brother inspires her through his disorder of Chiari Malformation Type I. This disorder presents as a physical defect in the cerebellum at birth, and hinders the person’s balance and walking for

From peg legs and hooks to robotic arms and legs, prosthetics have made an outstanding leap. Prosthetics have enabled amputees to regain mobility and their lives. The advancements in prosthetics have also led to a better understanding in surgical amputation and the construction of prosthetics. The question is what influenced the advancements of prosthetics and how it affected prosthetics. The answer lies within the history and the physiological components of prosthetics. Mobility and function, physiological components, and war all played an important role in the advancements of prosthetics.

My inner child wants to build futuristic exo-suits or bionic limbs that would help disabled people. I want to learn more about this and tinker with machines and organisms. So, I would create a class that combined biology and mechanical engineering in order to learn how to create the machines that have been imagined in science fiction and video games, but are yet to be created. In my opinion, the only way to extend the physical potential of humans is by improving the support we can give our bodies through exo-suits, or by replacing parts of them with superior artificial limbs (extremities). The possibilities that would be opened up from these advancements are endless. This is what I’d like to learn, and if allowed, this is the course I’d

With advancements in technology, amputees will be able to have legs that are equal to their non-amputee competitors. New materials such as thermal plastics and composites are being used in order to make the prosthetics lighter and stronger. Microprocessors are an integral part of the future of lower limb prosthesis. Joe McTernan, a member of the American Orthotic and Prosthetic Association, explained, “With microprocessor technology, electrodes are placed over the socket of the limb and the patient is trained that when they flex certain muscles, it sends a signal to the motor to do a specific motion” (Alvarez 1). This allows the amputee to have more control over their limbs when sprinting. There are other ideas for advancement that have not been tested yet. Permanent prosthetic limbs would be ideal because the athlete would not have to worry about their legs detaching during a race. They also would not have to waste their time and money on multiple prosthetic legs. A stronger, durable, and permanent prosthetic leg would be a life-changing invention. New designs are being created in an effort to find the best prosthetic leg. The ‘c-shaped’ and ‘j-shaped’ legs seem to be the most successful, but future advancement may determine that a replica of the human foot works better. Scientists continue to work tirelessly in an effort to create equal opportunities for athletic amputees to be

Modern prosthetic limbs have become very advanced in the last decade. They now have the ability to grip objects, have running limbs, and many more wonderful things. Although these prosthetics are great, they are lacking some key extras that amputees would relish. What amputees really want is their sense of feeling back. They want to reach out with their prosthetic limb and be able to tell if the stove is on or off. They want to be able to press the gas of an automobile. This sense, that all non-amputees take for granted, would be a great place to start the improvement of the perfect prosthetic limb. To accomplish such a daunting task, engineers must figure out an alternative source that could interact with the amputees still intact nerve endings. This way they can use their still functioning nerves to communicate with their pseudo-nerve and have the ability to move their prosthesis around with complete control of it and its sense of touch. I believe this has not

The 21st century can rightfully be considered as the era of technology when the new inventions and discoveries will most likely affect all the segments of human life. At this point, some of the breakthrough inventions of our times have been in the medical field. Robotic surgery has become an almost common practice in the advanced medical world and new uses for robotic assisted surgery are everyday set in place. However, such developments also attract different interests and implications.

The Da Vinci Surgical System is a large purpose-built robot controlled by a surgeon that performs minimally invasive surgical procedures on patients. The system incorporates an ergonomically designed surgeon's console, a patient-side module with four interactive robotic arms, each with interchangeable surgical instruments and a 3-dimensional endoscopic vision system. Powered by high-tech supercomputers, the surgeon's hand movements are scaled, filtered and then converted into precise movements of the surgical attachments. The designers of the system are a team of doctors, engineers and biomedical engineers at a company called Intuitive Surgical.

In prescription, prosthetic limb is a fake gadget that replaces a missing body part. The procedure of making this known as appendage prosthesis. It is a piece of the field of bio mechatronics, the study of utilizing mechanical gadgets with human muscle, skeleton, and sensory systems to support or improve engine control lost by trauma, ailment, or deformity. Prostheses are ordinarily used to supplant parts lost by harm (traumatic) or absent from conception (intrinsic) or to supplement imperfect body parts. Inside the body, manufactured heart valves are in like manner utilization with simulated hearts and lungs seeing less normal utilization. Other therapeutic gadgets and supports that could be considered prosthetics incorporate amplifiers,

With no previous experience with engineering, a great deal of my knowledge for the subject comes from studying mathematics, physics and computer science at A-Level. In preparation to study engineering at university, I have decided to read the books “Think like an engineer” by Guru Madhavan and “Cats’ Paws and Catapults” by Steven Vogel. The reason behind this was to grasp the methods in which a skilled engineer would think and enhance basic knowledge about the effects of materials and forces. My aim for the future would be to use my engineering knowledge to create more efficient mechanical limbs that may allow amputees to run and jump. From my reading, I have gained awareness of how natural tendons have certain physical properties that allow them to function efficiently. This include very low strain which allows the animal to rebound without wasting high energy, as the animal takes a stride the tendon compresses and absorbs energy, it then releases it when the animal springs forward. From the books, I have also gathered the difference in the walking and running in terms of motion, energy storage and efficiency. Developing such knowledge at undergraduate level will hopefully