Bionic Arm: Opportunities for Everyone!

The problem I encountered in my community, or rather in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was the main event of the loss of its superior members. In addition, the general population has low income, that is, due to the high cost of prostheses in the market, these people are not able to buy one, after all the price of a prosthesis of good quality in the market is very high, because of this a prosthesis becomes quite prohibitive for most people.

There are already 3D bionic-arm prosthesis around the world, but the idea of our project is the reduction of the price of manufacture. We intend to bring this idea to our community. We want to encourage the Maker Movement, the idea has always been and always will be share this idea for the most inhospitable places, regions of income financial low.

Unfortunately, we have approximately 40 million amputees in Brazil, and poverty are increasing every year, in 2019, 43.5 million people were affected. There are many printed prosthesis around the world, and that's great, but there's a problem with it the accessibility. The low price is relative according to each region of the World, In the suburb of the city of Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, there are many people in poverty, who can not pay themselves in 2000 dollars in a prosthesis. There are also small projects for performing prostheses, but they are only for educational purposes and not for the general population. The we project is not to make a prosthesis, but to recreate this prosthesis for the people of that region, to donate each one of them, with that, to promote the Maker movement, so that each person can make their own bionic prosthesis by providing the STEAM methodology in Rio de Janeiro.

We are working to improve the lives of people who are not able to have a bionic arm and create opportunities for individuals that it is possible to build an arm using quality technology in Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, and we hope everyone advantage the our work. The bionic arm involves a lot of electrical circuits and programming, so we are adjusting the data commands to the prosthesis according to the preference of each person. The prosthesis will make simple movements, such as opening, closing, and rotating, since many people need to make simple movements, eat, drink water, brush their teeth.

In the project that I am developing, together with my team, we intend to solve this issue by printing on a 3D printer the parts of the prosthesis. We will use the PETG filament as a material for 3D printers, as it is inexpensive and has a high durability and quality. In addition, we will use Arduino Nano, which is an extremely inexpensive technology, and thereby program the movements through the frequencies of the muscles detected by an EMG sensor (Electromyography), for that we will be using electrodes connected to the main muscles of the arm. For the prosthesis to have strength to lift any object, we will use a servo motor, known as MG995, which has a torque of least 11 kg and a maximum of 15 kg. The mechanism that will connect the servo motor to the fingers will be fishing lines, which has a capacity to withstand a force of 350 Newtons. To power the entire electrical circuit, we are using 18650 batteries, which addition provide eight hours of arm operation and are still rechargeable.

People often do not need to buy a two-thousand dollar prosthesis to make several movements, sometimes they just need to make basic movements such as opening and closing their hand, activities like drinking water, eating and brushing their teeth, just as we also realize how wonderful it would be to realize the dream this people. We also seek to encourage the Maker movement by demonstrating that it is possible to build a prosthesis of quality and low cost by providing access to the technolog.

The basis of our research regarding the technology we will use, always taking into account their quality and accessibility in the market, consists of the EMG (electromyography) sensor, which will pick up the frequencies detected by the electrodes attached to the arm muscles, and the Arduino Nano, which through a programming will receive the frequencies captured by the sensor and convert to pwm signals, thus, it will move the servos MG995, which in turn will open and close the hand.

After researches related to the development of bionic arms and experiments/tests already carried out by the world, it is confirmed that the use of electromyographic sensors are efficient for the capture of muscle frequencies, our main difficulty is to adjust the movement commands using the language codes C ++, language used by the arduino IDE, since the data of muscular frequencies can vary according to the individual. However we believe that all the components already mentioned in the previous items give the project a good basis that there is great possibility of success.

At the moment, only one person. In a year, two people. In five years, we estimate to help more than ten people.

We intend to increase our team in order to spread knowledge in educational institutions and to carry out more research to improve the prosthesis.

The greatest difficulty is to adjust the bionic arm programming according to the commands given by the person, since there are many muscle frequencies detected, so we need to study each of the muscles using an oscilloscope. There is search for individuals interested in the project with maturity and competence is also a factor to take into account for the success of the research.

We seek to overcome this barrier through research and testing using the oscilloscope, acquiring practical results to aid in the improvement and functioning of the bionic arm. As for the individuals interested in the project, we intend to make some kind of evaluation to see if they are able to participate in the project.

The team has four people.

We only have the will and the incentive to take up this challenge. We can not leave aside that being part of a federal institution of respect with a quality education and recognized by the country has facilitated us to want to carry out this project, as well as the support of teachers who are committed to this problem, not only by enjoying quality education.

At the moment we are partnering with a laboratory that will make 3D printing available, because not be a company, but a project within an educational institution,to make our partnership legal, a cooperation agreement what it enables us to do business. No money is involved, only the availability of machines and materials for the construction of the prosthesis.

The big reason I apply for Solve is because my community has a relatively low financial income, many people do not have the financial capacity to buy a bionic arm, what we're doing is spreading most of our work so people know about our team and with this help as many people as possible.

Yes, we’d like to sign up for the GM Award.
We will use the award to leverage our community and the world by promoting our work. we intend to take advantage of the amount given by the award to build a workplace that provides us with a suitable space for the construction of the prostheses containing machines and materials, It can also be a space maker giving the possibility for several students to create their own prosthetics by preparing research and tests.