A student at the University of California, San Diego, launched the Tritons Prosthetic Society for students interested in applying their education to prosthetic design outside of a lab or classroom; the university doesn’t offer traditional prosthetics education. Mechanical engineering graduate Kenny Huh developed the society after reviewing the school’s biomedical and robotics programs and realizing that many students apply their projects to the defense industry because they didn’t know about other options.
“I think prosthetics is something…[that is] definitely needed,” Huh told the UC San Diego Guardian. “I think with robotics growing, there’s an opportunity to incorporate that into prosthetics, and it’s a way of helping people, too.”
Before Huh’s graduation in June, the club had held an in-person general body meeting, a computer model design workshop, and introduced members to the components of prosthetic devices. The group has now developed opportunities for students to work on prosthetics-specific projects. A beginner team is open to any students interested in learning about prosthetic design and building basic skills. Students with some experience in prosthetic design will begin making a prosthetic device for competitions.
Emanoel Agbayani, vice president and software lead, a machine learning major, hopes the ongoing workshops will appeal to students of all disciplines and skill levels.
“We have a software and hardware component,” Agbayani said. “Hardware is mainly for the engineers, so like mechanical and bioengineering. Our software is mainly for electrical engineers, any [computer science] majors, and obviously, machine learning majors.”
Editor’s note: This story was adapted from materials provided by the UC San Diego Guardian.
