Tentacular awesomeness pushes limits of body image
From The Design Blog, via NOTCOT:
Of course, any advances in prosthetics is welcome, but I bet the first thoughts of most people reading this here were either Cool! I could be an octopus! or Woah - I want one of those on my next Hallowe'en costume!
I'd really like to see a video of it in action - I can't decide if it would be cool or creepy.
I also imagine that an arm like this would be (relatively) easy to engineer for the amateur.
Pushing the boundaries of current upper-limb prosthetic design, designer Kaylene Kau has created a prosthetic arm that supports the dominant functioning hand in accomplishing day-to-day tasks with ease and efficiency. Featuring a flexible design, the prosthetic arm adjusts to allow a variety of different grips to hold a variety of objects with minimum fuss. The Prosthetic Arm also integrates motors and cables, which help the user control the amount of arm curls required for different tasks. Presenting a simple yet effective design, the new prosthetic limb makes users self-reliant, as they can carry out their everyday tasks without any assistance.
Of course, any advances in prosthetics is welcome, but I bet the first thoughts of most people reading this here were either Cool! I could be an octopus! or Woah - I want one of those on my next Hallowe'en costume!
I'd really like to see a video of it in action - I can't decide if it would be cool or creepy.
I also imagine that an arm like this would be (relatively) easy to engineer for the amateur.
Discussions
9 years ago
Its nice to see a modern option for prosthetics that is not all about replicated the human hand.
9 years ago
Creative, but the application is confined to things that require only the "curl" utility of grasping. What about things like playing a piano, or typing on a computer, or dicing tomatoes?
Reply 9 years ago
Reply 9 years ago
I love you.
Reply 9 years ago
And I love you, I'm just not in love with you. But we can still be friends.
9 years ago
Raise your hand if you misread the title
Reply 9 years ago
(The mucky minds of youth)
Reply 9 years ago
Aye, even I was momentarily subject to such a misread :-)
Reply 9 years ago
Aye,
Reply 9 years ago
*LOL* Only momentarily, I got it right before coming to see the post though ;-)
Reply 9 years ago
*raises hand*
Reply 9 years ago
> slap <
9 years ago
Hmmm....kind of adds new meaning to the term noodly appendage.
Reply 9 years ago
Hmm, noodles bend in "all directions"; there would need be some improvements to make this so...but yes, it does give rise to new ways to express one's self (hugging for instance).
9 years ago
And a super villain is born.
9 years ago
is it wrong of me to want one of those? i may have to make something like it for a halloween costume
i guess that brings up the main problem with prosthetics. i think it's been shown that the MOST effective prosthetics are the ones that don't look anything like the part they're replacing.
many people that i've known with prosthetics have said that their "hook" hands work 100% better than the "hand" hands do, no matter how advanced the hand ones were. granted the folk that i dealt with in my time in the rehab field didn't have access to the super new cyborg hands, but they did have access to quite a bit of experimental equipment. they almost all said that the super advanced hand looking hands were (at the moment) more of a novelty and something neat, but they never worked as well or reliably as the old fashioned cable actuated hook.
and take prosthetic legs. the high arc carbon limbs that look nothing like a leg work much better than a stick with a foot at the end.
i wonder if the human tendancy to go towards restoration of "normal" is what's truly holding back prosthetics from being as functional as they could be. imagine a prothetic limb with that suction grabber from that other post, it would look weird as hell but it would work SO much better than a clumsy hand.