Nicholas Garces: Prosthetic Accessory

Concept:

At the onset of this class, I read that we would need to model a prosthetic and a few ideas popped into my mind. I thought specifically of my friend Heaven and something I'd seen online a while back. My friend Heaven happens to be an amputee and we are very close so I knew I'd want to design her an awesome prosthetic for special occasions (with the wishful thinking that I could actually materialize such an object). The idea is to create a prosthetic that could house a silicon lining and RGB or LED lights that could be controllable via a smartphone application or a switch to turn off/on the electronics. This will require more finesse to get this model looking similar to how I had imagined and rendering is going to be my friend when bringing to life the interior lighting, but here is a rough blocking of the design I'd had in mind to scale with her foot size though further measurements would be needed to custom set this prosthetic to her specifically.

Process:

I created curves and lofted to create surfaces that have an organic feel to them. I kept the foot and leg separate so that I could connect these two using a metal pipe that would connect from the top of the leg to the bottom. To create a hexagonal pattern, I used grasshopper a modified populate surface script to create evenly spaced hexagons across the outer surface of the leg. I was able to then fillet all of the edges by scaling the model up to 10x it’s original size momentarily. I created a fitting on top for the human leg to attach to the prosthetic comfortably. I used the center piping to create locations for LED strips that could theoretically be wired up the leg to a button that I modeled into the top of the assembly to allow for physical control over such a system.

Materials:

From the start, I knew I wanted to have white plastic on the piece that has a hexagonal pattern on it. I wanted the center material to be cloudy silicon that would allow me to light up the LED strip with an emissive surface allowing it to light up the silicon and shine through the hexagonal holes in the white plastic. The part where the human leg connects with the prosthetic is made out of soft rubber and the foot a stiffer, but still soft, rubber to help with impact resistance.