Research, Design and construction of a prosthetic appendage: an investigation into the pros and cons of the prosthetic hand – with a solution to improve on past designs

The project as briefly mentioned above, is the research, design and construction of a prosthetic appendage. The appendage, in our case a hand, is an important instrument in everyday life; yet the technology has not advanced with the remainder of other medical breakthroughs. The overall objective of the group was to find out what the issues were surrounding the design and the potential methods of solving these problems. Previously, there have been many attempts at designing and building the complex fluid shapes of the prosthetic hand through techniques such as injection moulding, although the process can be very expensive. To make the technology available to a wider target audience, the team had to focus on low budget methods of creating the hand; using the 3D printer. 3D printing technology is the future of manufacturing, being able to build a range of shapes in a matter of hours; the solution offers not only a lower budget prosthetic but an easily accessible product. Fuelled only by our knowledge and will to succeed, the team worked on these cheaper solutions – refining each design to reach the desired outcome that recipients look for in their prosthetic.