Saturday, January 29, 2011

Design student pushes boundaries of prosthetic design

From Dexigner:

Kaylene Kau, a recent graduate from the industrial design department at the University of Washington was challenged by a professor to "push the boundaries of prosthetic design."

So she did, and here, inspired by the fluid movements of an octopus's arms, is her multi-jointed Prosthetic Arm.

Kau's research on prosthetic arms revealed that they are used primarily to assist the dominant arm, rather than to mimic the actions of the dominant arm.

Her flexible design enables two important functions of her inspiration, as the octopus arm is great at picking up and holding things of various sizes.