Michigan Tech students sure seem to get a lot of cool projects to work on, and the latest is no different.
Under the guidance of advisors Tammy Haut Donahue and Sheryl Sorby, a group of mechanical engineering undergrad students went to India to present a new design for mobility equipment to help disabled children walk.
Two senior design project teams went to India, each with different devices. One was a custom-made design for a 16-year-old boy with cerebral palsy. It's called a reciprocating gait orthosis, or walking calipers, and includes leg braces, a waistband and arm pieces that together help the boy walk in a more natural gait.
The boy in question had used a wheelchair for most of his life, but in the presentation of the calipers at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, he was able to get up and walk without much assistance. An Indian newspaper writes about his story
here.
"He should be able to stand on his own in about six months," Haut Donahue says. "This should let him be more independent of his parents."
Part of the stipulation in each design was to have it be something that could be produced using Indian manufacturing resources and local parts and materials, for a low cost, in order to make the devices more available to those who need them.
So the Michigan Tech design team made theirs cost about one-tenth what the current available mobility devices in India cost, and gave the designs to Ortho Prosthetics Care and Rehabilitation in India, which will provide the calipers free to those who cannot afford them.
If you're wondering about the second design team, they went down a similar path, designing leg braces that go from the bottom of the foot to the thigh, called a knee-ankle-foot orthosis for the Delhi Council for Child Welfare. It will allow children with polio to not only walk, but sit and squat, so that they can use the bathroom by themselves.
Indian engineers adjusted the Tech design to fit more closely with available tools and parts, and said they'll be able to reproduce it with a few changes.
"What our students did in six hours in our machine shop, the Indian machinists did in three minutes using a hammer and a file," says Haut Donahue. "They were phenomenal."
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: Tammy Haut Donahue, Michigan Technological University
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