Open-source collaboration has extended from software development to the design and prototyping of such useful objects as a prosthetic hand. Here a prosthesis called the Trautman hook has become the focal point of an online discussion intended to improve and update it.
Image: The Open Prosthetics Project
In Brief
- With enhanced emergency medicine, many soldiers are coming home from war with grievous injuries instead of being killed.
- Innovation in arm and hand prostheses has been slow because the market for the devices is small and development costs are high.
- The Open Prosthetics Project (OPP) has applied the “open source” model—long used in developing “community-based” software—to the design of inexpensive prosthetic hands and arms that a small demand can still support. The designs are free for anyone to use.
Before Jonathan Kuniholm, a marine reservist, was shipped off to the war in Iraq, he and three friends formed a research and development firm they called Tackle Design. The four men had worked together in an industrial engineering class at North Carolina State University (N.C.S.U.), and, filled with youthful enthusiasm, they hoped their fledgling company could survive on jobs that were interesting and beneficial rather than simply moneymaking. They worked with inventors—making prototypes for a plastic lock to keep shoestrings tied and a fishing lure with an embedded LED—as well as with medical engineers from their alma mater, who were developing tools for minimally invasive robotic surgery.
Then, before business had a chance to get off the ground, Kuniholm was deployed. A few months later, on New Year’s Day 2005, he and about 35 other marines were ambushed near the Hadithah Dam along the Euphrates River northwest of Baghdad. His platoon had been looking for insurgents who had fired at a Swift boat patrolling around the dam a few hours earlier. As the marines closed in on the suspected hotspot, an IED—improvised explosive device—hidden in a can of olive oil exploded. Shrapnel ripped through the platoon, and Kuniholm was blasted off his feet. Moments later, when he came to his senses, he discovered his M16 rifle had been blown in half and his right arm was nearly severed just below the elbow. Caught in a raging firefight, Kuniholm pulled himself out of harm’s way. His fellow marines called for air evacuation, and soon surgeons at a hospital near Baghdad were amputating his ravaged arm.
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5 Comments
Add CommentThat's great news. See what happens when individuals work together for the common good?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNice to see some focus on improving TDs. That's actually a photo of my daughter in the article with her HS volleyball team. Her personal choice in active TDs is a voluntary closure device that she can close with as much strength as she needs. She tried the myoelectric hand at about 8 years of age and her response was "it's heavy and slow and not as functional."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am only 10 years of age, my dad being a investigative engineer. I have read this article and wish to help with the designs that people have created.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know of a program which I am practicing with called Blender. This program is free and extremely useful. I had a friend who previously built small models with 3DMax. The day after I told him about it, he said that he wondered why he used 3DMax and said that he finds it so much more useful. What I am saying is that this can be even more open-source. This program Blender is very handy and I am using it to build a dirigible.
My son was recently injured in an horrific workplace accident losing both legs at the hip joint, his left hand and scrotum. I realise that something canbe done for the hand but do you have any research or contacys for lower limbs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKind regards
Pauline Bushell
tea.coffee@bigpond.com
This project is a wonderful idea! My son, 23, is a law student and lost his arm in a waverunner accident over winter break. Our insurance totally denied our claim for a prosthetic arm and they are quite expensive.
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