Quick Prototypes for Milestone Labs

This week, we were tasked with creating quick prototypes from materials we already had to better understand what our sketches from last week would look like in 3D. Our team met in the Art & Design Building to get “crafty”, and definitely started honing in on exactly what to design, especially with feedback from Milestone Labs, Jenna, and Yoga for Amputees founder Marsha Danzig.

We created two prototypes. The first has a pylon attached to a base shaped similarly to a flipper based off the interview we had with Marissa, a yoga teacher at the arc. This would completely replace Jenna’s current foot, which she told us is easily removable with an Allen wrench.

Our second design was an attachment to Jenna’s current prosthetic and would include altering a yoga mat as well. This attachment is a series of magnets that would provide her stability but definitely not get in the way while she does any floor poses. Our questions with this design definitely revolved around magnets: what kinds of magnets to use? How strong would the magnets have to be to hold her well and still be easy to pick up her leg for one-legged poses on her sound side?

When we brought these two designs to Milestone Labs for feedback, they definitely saw where the designs came from based on our research and were concerned about the magnets as well. They even pointed out that the rest of her leg has metal, so the magnets may be more attracted to that when not on the mat and get in the way. However, they did really like the pylon design. We also showed these to Jenna after class, and she was more comfortable with the pylon design. She mentioned that rather than a “flipper” shape, a circle, with the pylon connecting to the center, may actually give her the best balance! She’s also most interested in having something that could be 3D printed, which we could design for the pylon design but the magnet design would need more flexible fabrics incorporated.

Lastly, we had an interview with Marsha Danzig, founder of YogaforAmputees, after class. She was incredibly sweet and supportive of our project. She gave recommendations regarding the flexibility of our materials and the shape of the base as a circle made sense to her as well. She also reflected on some students in her amputee yoga classes having basic prosthetics created for yoga that resembled plungers. These are not commercially available, but they essentially created them as we are now. The “plunger” bottom was helpful because it had a light suction which increased their stability. This is definitely something we are interested in adding to our design.

Our next steps will be to create a 3D printed prototype to make sure we have the correct measurements and give time for iterations. We also want to talk to Jenna after our discussion with Marsha to get her perspective on the feedback we received.