College Engineering Majors Create Prosthetic Hand

I found this story online earlier today. It's about a team of BYU undergraduate engineers who create a prosthetic for Jeane Taylor, a finger and leg amputee, for their school project. Awesome story. I could really feel for Jeane when she was explaining the things she missed doing. It’s always the little things, the things you don’t even realize you can do until you can’t do them anymore. Also, what an awesome project these college engineers worked on! They used what they learned from their schooling to make a difference in this amputee’s life. I wish I had more projects like that when I was in college.

Reading the story begs to ask the question: Form or function? Right now, I would have to agree with Jeane, the amputee in the story, function is more important than form. But what do you think? Have you run into anything that combines the two successfully? Let’s hear what you have to say!

A Leg Amputee Is Only As Good As...

Sometimes I feel that the phrase "a leg amputee is only as good as his gear" is true. It would be very difficult to do a lot of the things I do with a peg leg! So here is a picture of the goods:

From left to right, here is what I have:

1. A custom liner - I would suggest that any amputee get one custom made if possible. Plus, the material gives and takes with your limb making it more comfortable.
2. A couple 1-ply socks - I wish I could get rid of these, and have tried a few times, but they are a necessity to add a little fill in the socket.
3. Outer sleeve - I cannot tell you how many of these I have gone through. As an active amputee, I keep getting holes in them, which defeats the purpose of having the vacuum (see #4). Any ideas on how to fix the problem?
4. My "normal" leg - A suction based socket (with my favorite college team's logo on the front). Underneath the socket is a LimbLogic Vacuum by Ohio Willow Wood. I just noticed that they came out with a waterproof version (the LimbLogic VS) recently (for us amputees who don't want to worry about getting our prosthetics wet!). I'm planning on doing a post highlighting this little gadget in the near future. The foot piece is a Renegade by Freedom Innovations. It is awesome! I use it for everything and have never thought about changing.
5. My "water" leg - Another suction based socket (without the motor) for my water activities. Although now that OWW came out with the waterproof LimbLogic VS, looks like I might only need one leg in the near future!

Do you have any sweet features on your prosthetic? Any suggestions for myself or other amputees on technology that has worked for you? Let us know!