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Lisa Espinoza

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Is anyone familiar with building a prosthetic arm ? I'd really like some tips and ideas

My MESA team is building a prosthetic arm and it'd be very helpful to receive any tips or ideas

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  • Steve C

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    Oct 15 2012: No, I'm not familiar with building a prosthetic arm.

    How about this
    - (assuming a Class 3 lever) How about where the biceps muscle meets the forearm, that ligament is moveable, so when you need more power, it's there (better leverage).
    - an extendable/retractable over-all reach
    - fingernails. I find them useful.

    P.S., if you find this useful, perhaps you could try to find an answer to my question, What's the (actual) word for when you physically hit an electronic or mechanical device to get it to work?
    I really would like to re-find this word.

  • Scott Koenraadt

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    Oct 10 2012: I would say it depends on the amount of arm you have to reconstruct. I would say start at the further appendage, the hand. Then you can start running wire (ligiments) and hinging and putting in springs and such to allow the hand to return to 0 type deal. Once you have that done you can start going further back, the main stumbling part I found was the low energy motors that would be needed to replace muscle mass, and how to stimulate them so that the wire can be pulled or released with the brains connecting signals/
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