Prosthetics Outreach Foundation (POF) has announced collaborations with engineering students from the University of Washington (UW), Seattle, and Washington State University (WSU), Pullman, to research improvements in prosthetic foot designs for individuals with amputations in Sierra Leone, and ultimately improve local prosthetic limbs and components in other developing countries. The student groups will be led by Raymond Pye, director of program quality and emerging programs at POF.
A team of five UW Mechanical Engineering students are creating a low-cost lower-limb design that will be durable and adjustable so it can be manufactured and maintained in Sierra Leone; they must balance functionality, cost, lifespan, and manufacturing capabilities. The team will assess the materials and manufacturing environment of Sierra Leone, identify design requirements, and develop multiple concepts. As part of this process, different designs will be modeled using CAD software, and tested using computational stress analyses. They will then select the best design for a prototype before the end of this academic year. The team will be aided by Randy Ching, PhD, research associate professor and director of the UW Applied Biomechanics Laboratory, and Daniel Abrahamson, CPO, a lecturer with the UW Medicine Department of Rehabilitation Medicine.
POF is also partnering with the WSU Industrial Design Clinic, led and organized by Chuck Pezeshki, PhD, WSU associate professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, and Gene Jones, a retired engineer and leading expert in injection molding, to direct WSU students in analyzing cost and performance trade-offs for viable foot manufacture and distribution in Sierra Leone. They will also develop low-cost solutions for high-tech processes, such as three-dimensional (3D) printing and rapid prototyping, so that systems can be delivered to Sierra Leone and run using something as simple as a smartphone. The teams hope to have a locally manufactured solution made out of recycled plastic barrels that will reduce the cost of a single foot to less than $25 in one year’s time.
