The Open Prosthetics Project

      The Open Prosthetics Project was started by Jonathan Kuniholm and his colleagues from Tackle Design. When Jonathan returned home from his tour of Iraq, he was missing part of his arm, and it was replaced with what he refers to as WWII technology. The basic metal hook that many amputees wear when attempting to replace their hands or arms are claimed by many to be the most effective. This is kind of sad if really thought about, seeing as the “better” and newer mechanical arms are only used by around 5% of amputees. This caused Jonathan and his colleagues to dismantle his prosthetic arms and discover they could easily improve all of them. With that in mind, they went to work and started Open Prosthetics Project.

     One might ask, What is the Open Prosthetics Project? Well, just like in the world of Linux and and open source software, the Open Prosthetics Project is set up as a collaborative for anyone and everyone that wants to help. At this point many feel that the prosthetic market is not big enough to properly support research and development, hence why there hasn’t been any major changes or updates to prosthetic limbs that are out now. With the project being open, this allows for anyone worldwide to input ideas. The hope is to even get the private sector in on it so that adequate prosthetic limbs can finally be produced.

     One project they are working on is Articulated LEGO Hand. This is a hand that moves like the fingers and wrist of a real hand does. The model has changed a lot since it was first shown in April, and there are even two similar designs by the same person. Below is a video of him demo-ing that hand. At this point it has not been powered by motors, which is one of the next hurdles to climb over. Another one of the projects going on is the Adaptive Grasp Idea. The thought behind this one is that the hand conforms to just about any object it picks up. To prove this, a latex glove was filled with small glass beads. The hand was then placed into position and had a vacuum applied to it. This, in turn, causes the hand to conform to the object and can even allow it to pick up things with very little effort. This, like many of the ideas on the site, is just a concept, and it still has many issues that would have to be figured out before taking a real look at this path.