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Every Prototype that Led to a Realistic Prosthetic Arm | WIRED - YouTube
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prosthetic arms for much of the 20th and
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21st century looked like this while
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prosthetic legs were running in the
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olympics arms were being left behind
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prosthetics uh it's a quite a
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challenging product to develop it's not
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going to replace or or surpass a human
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hand it's a tool ultimately and it's
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there to assist you and we have to make
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it extremely functional but easy to use
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but since the early 2000s private
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companies governments and research labs
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are developing prosthesis that are more
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functional and a lot more advanced than
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previous designs wire talk with easton
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la chapelle founder and ceo of unlimited
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tomorrow to understand how he designed
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tested and adopted his prosthetic arm
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so what are the options available for
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those looking for prosthetic arms the
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landscape of prosthetic offerings today
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is quite a spectrum there's very simple
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passive devices they look like a hand
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but they don't have any type of movement
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or function beyond just aesthetics or
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cosmetics the next here is the body
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powered so this is the classic kind of
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hook and claw system usually you shrug
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your shoulder kind of move your body to
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be able to close an open claw and then
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the next class is quite a wide one you
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go into the myoelectric more robotic
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class and then beyond that you get into
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the research level where these are these
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brain control devices that universities
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are developing so the big question was
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how can you design an arm that's
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functional while also being affordable
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easton started with this design this is
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really what started it all this is the
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very first robotic hand i made when i
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was 14 and as you can see there's a lot
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of simple household items it's a lot of
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legos and electrical tubing at this
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point it's very very basic
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but this essentially validated that we
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could use motors and tendons to open and
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close fingers next was this model i made
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this back in 2012 and this was really
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the infancy of the consumer 3d printing
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world you know these were essentially
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kind of hot glue machines that extruded
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material and sometimes they work
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sometimes they didn't you can see it's a
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very similar concept where we have these
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servo motors that essentially pull these
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tendons these fishing lines for the
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increased grip i i decided to put these
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little finger pads and this was was far
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more functional i could actually pick up
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things accurately and do a little bit
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more real-life tasks with it their next
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prototype was a little more sci-fi it
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used an eeg headset which measured brain
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waves to control the prosthesis so the
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next prototype is what i call robo arm
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and this was a lot of the concepts kind
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of rolled into one here i found a lot of
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benefit working with pendant systems
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compared to other mechanical designs a
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lot of other devices on the market use
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linkages and so then when we looked at
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tendons and especially the individual
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finger joints essentially we want to
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eliminate the cognitive bandwidth that
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someone uh experiences when using a
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prosthesis and an experiment with how do
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we merge mana machine can we tap into
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the brain without a surgery do you know
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can we use external headsets or is it
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best to go into the nerves the muscles
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kind of
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the area to be able to control the
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prosthesis their next design went back
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to the basics getting rid of the headset
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and focusing instead on a 3d printed
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material with a tendon system design so
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this is like i'm learning from years of
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prototyping bundling it all into a
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single design here the socket is the
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hardest part of a prosthesis and if it
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doesn't fit right no one's going to use
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it and this was actually replica for a
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small grow name momo we would send
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webcams and 3d scanners and xbox kinects
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down to her house in florida where her
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mother would scan her residual limb and
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then we would generate a socket which is
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how the device attaches to the person
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and then there's a small band that would
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read your muscles and then from there
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she's able to open and close the hand
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change the grips we still utilize today
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of how can we create these natural
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feedback loops to the brain we want to
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supplement the brain we don't want to
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take control or to create a secondary
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brain
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we want to we want to tap into exactly
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how a human arm typically works
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this is true limb this is our first
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product we launched in june of 2020 and
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when you look at this this is
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essentially a robotic hand so each of
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these fingers have individual finger
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motion you can see these small tendons
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in here we have about 14 joints that act
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independent
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so how does it work how can people with
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missing limbs use their muscles to move
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the device
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it's one thing to read data from the
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human body which we do through sensors
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but then how do we input data back into
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the body and into the brain how do we
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provide feedback of are you touching
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something that's hot or cold are you
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picking up something with delicate touch
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or are you actually really grasping it
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it starts here with their feedback
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system
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we wrap the entire limb with with a
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large array of these sensors and we look
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for very small minute changes we try and
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go as simple as possible right now we
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use a vibration motor similar to what's
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in cell phones the use of 3d printed
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materials helps keeps costs down but in
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the beginning the 3d printed landscape
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looked a lot differently than today 3d
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printing has come a long way since i
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started uh back when some of the most
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simple 3d printers made out of laser-cut
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wood and
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very simple plastic it looks incredible
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but what we're finding is that it's very
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brittle and so we kept having the pinky
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break it's what you're going to bang
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everything against on a counter and we
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kind of reach the point where like this
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is just not going to work for a
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prosthetic device it's just not durable
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enough and then so we started looking
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into what's happening in the landscape
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of 3d printing and it's actually where
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we first started talking with hp they
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created this incredible machine
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that prints in full color but also in a
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very strong nylon material innovations
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in 3d printing meant stronger materials
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which hopefully translates to more
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resilient devices
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so what's next for unlimited tomorrow
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we're constantly learning constantly
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doing research data collection that
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helps influence the future the product
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and so that's something that's really
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high on our list is just to continue to
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expand and just you know just make this
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more and more accessible and we're
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looking at forms of exoskeletons and
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other types of technology uh to use
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robotics and a lot of our foundational
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technology to
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you know help help give people uh you
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know empowerment and accessibility and
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mobility across the world
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