NANOTECHNOLOGY AND PROSTHETICS

By Marshall Weimer

Introduction
Ive been working at MSU since

September in the engineering lab with a doctoral student named Mostafa Alfatlawi. Mostafas is working on a PhD in nanotechnology. He is from Iraq. His dissertation project is developing a temperature sensor in the fingertips of a prosthetic arm. People with this could feel heat again in their hand once more. They could feel if a hot plate is on, or someones body heat from the skin, or even if something was on fire, they could feel it. One person Mostafa talked to once with a prosthetic arm said he was dying to feel heat in his prosthetic arm again.

Project
There are little temperature

sensors in the tips of the prosthetic hand that read temperature. The temperature is then transferred up the hand an into a device that reads the heat, and then that goes to a heater attached to the skin itself. It sound simple, but it really is not. Not at ALL. We have to first make a robotic prosthetic hand, then program it to move and be able to work. After that, we would have to make the program and wire the temperature sensors, and all this Mostafa says will take him about, you know, 5 years to finish. So, we have quite the trip ahead of us.

My Part
I have made LEGO models of

the hand that moves the fingers all at the same time, and working on one that moves the fingers individually. I also wire more simple circuits for Mostafa such as this one down below. I can also read some parts of the schematics he gives to me, such as symbols for VCC, capacitors, and jumps in connections. Typing the program for him is also one of the things I do for Mostafa. I dont fully understand the language itself yet, but I do get sparse parts of it.

Lego Hand

Actual Robotic Hand

Schematics and Written Program

How I Got Involved

Every summer since I was 6

years old, I go to this robotics camp at MSU taught by Dr. Dean Aslam, whos doctorate is in nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at a nano or molecular scale. After going to the camp for about 6 years, Dr. Aslam invited me to come work with a doctorial student in his lab. So after agreeing, I go to MSU every week on Tuesday and work there from 4:30 to 6:30.

QUESTIONS, ANYONE?