A University student won $30,000 for creating a low-cost prosthetic limb for people in developing countries.
Jonathan Naber, junior in Engineering, won the Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize earlier this month. Every year the prize is awarded to a student who creates a sustainable solution to a real-world problem.
There are more than 25 million amputees in the world and 80 percent of them live in underdeveloped countries.
With the goal of addressing this problem, Naber said he gathered a group of six engineering students who wanted to use their skills to help people in the world who are disabled. This marked the creation of the Illini Prosthetic Team.
Hari Vigneswaran, junior in Engineering and member of the team, said he was drawn to the project because it had a “global purpose” and it was “service oriented.”
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Luke Jungles, junior in Engineering and another a member of the team, said he wanted to “use his engineering skills to help make the world a better place.”
What the team came up with was a modularized, or three-piece, prosthetic arm. Currently, prosthetic arms are custom-made for the person who needs it.
By using a modularized arm, custom fitting for this prosthetic limb becomes unnecessary and also allows for mass production. Not only does this mean prosthetic arms will cost less, but the new design allows someone to fit the arm even if they have not had specialized training in fitting prosthetic limbs.
During the summer, the team plans on testing the limb in a Guatemalan clinic and a clinic in the Champaign-Urbana area. If the tests go well, the team could expand its efforts to Latin America and the Caribbean, southwest and southeast Asia, and southern and western Africa.
Mike Philpott, professor of materials science and engineering and an advisor for the team, said he was impressed by the group’s motivation, passion and creativity.
He said he believes that if the team is successful, there might potentially be a bank of prosthetic limbs that could be bought by charities and flown in to disaster areas, such as Haiti or Chile.
Philpott said he believes that Naber and his team mark an new era in engineering students that have a “free creative spirit and are not encumbered by four years of being bashed by all the fundamentals.”
He said he believes that engineering design contests, such as the Lemelson-MIT prize, help keep engineers creative and passionate about their field.
