sEMG Bionic Hand

A sprain in my wrist while playing basketball set me thinking on how to utilise my 3D designing and printing skills to make a brace for my wrist. And soon I came up with a 3D printed brace that restricted the movement of the wrist for quicker healing. Subsequently I made a few variations of these to help people recover from sprains and aches. This brace has a unique characteristic that it could be moulded as per the size and fit of the wearer. The PLA material used to print these could be moulded in warm water. 

This brace seeded a deeper thought on using 3D printing for prosthetics and orthotics. A few months later, one of my uncles was visiting us. He had worked as a forensic expert in a Government Lab  and he had lost 2 of his fingers in an accident when an improperly diffused IED exploded in his hands. Two of his fingers are amputated and he provided me insights into how my project could be made useful. I decided to research more about prosthetics and artificial limbs. During this study, I came across Bionic sensing techniques and started prototyping with a Bio Amplifier - an electronic component which can amplify very weak nerve signals (fed into it via electrodes) whenever muscles are exercised. After several days of reading and understanding this technology, I was fully motivated to make a bionic limb as a  proof of concept. It felt like a life changing improvement could be made for amputees with such a device.

However, I needed more inputs from actual potential users. I wanted to understand the problems being faced by amputees to ensure that the device I was building would be useful. I found out about PNR Society and Prosthetic Fitting Centre based in  Bhavnagar, Gujarat. They were trying to help children with disabilities and had their own prosthetic manufacturing facilities and clinics.I planned a visit there and it was very insightful. I have shared the details about my trip in another post. Read about my visit to Prosthetics Fitting Center 

This trip gave me motivation to further the work I was doing. Talking to some people in similar industries (both domestic and international) also gave me insights into issues I might face but I felt extremely motivated to help such people with low cost 3D printed Bionic limbs.