An important criteria for the low cost prosthetics program is cheap and locally available materials. We started experimenting with local fibers that can be found throughout Indonesia. In combination with a resin they can form strong and lightweight parts, especially the pineapple fibre looks promising. Next step would be to find a local polyurethane like resin made from biological ingredients.
I finally seized the chance to experiment with wet forming leather. Since it was Tommy’s birthday and I had a bottle of Arak to share with him, I decided to try to mould the leather into a nice giftwrap. Continue Reading →
We used a two component rubber resin of polyurethane type for this prototype. The wedge shaped rubber will provide exponential resistance as the prosthetic foot bends forward. The rubber also packs around the metal hinge pin to reduce shear stress. Continue Reading →
To get some feedback on the potential of the rubber wedge foot, we CNC milled a sketch at HONFablab Indonesia. We used massive wood of the Keruing type and a flip part setup to create the parts. Continue Reading →
This is an illustration of the a design principle for the 50dollar prosthetic leg program. The basic principle is to use a a rubber wedge that will create exponential resistance as the foot fends. The amount of resistance can be varied by casting different stiffness of rubber or by creating open “pockets” within the cast rubber. The design is largely based upon design input from Haakon Karlsen at MIT FabLab Lyngen. Continue Reading →
Knut Klo, Haakon Karlsen Jr. and I won the FAB8 design competition in Wellington, New Zealand. Our hexacopter easily managed to stay the required 30 seconds in the air. The amazing guys at Phothigher saved the day by lending us one of their micro controllers when we couldn’t get the Ardupilot to work in time. Also a big thanks to all the people from the FabLab community who helped me troubleshoot the RF communications. More pictures in the post. Continue Reading →
This is a 5min video message from Haakon Karlsen Jr. to the FabLab community, since he could not make it to FAB8 this year. We have included some shots of how we used the plastic bender to make our hexacopter arms and the ShopBot to cnc mill the propellers. Continue Reading →
Here are the laser cutting source files for making the plastic bending machine at FabLab Lyngen. The plastic bender is a very handy tool for bending plastic parts made on the lasercutter. You will also need a steel rod, as well as some kind of transformer to put variable amounts of electricity through the rod. Haakon uses a small welding device. You leave your parts over the heated rod, after about one minute the plastic will be melted enough to fold the part by hand. If you want precision bends you can laser cut your own jigs. You can find some instructions in this video.
The insulating boxes at FabLab Lyngen are really smart. They drastically reduce the noise from the milling process and keeps the dust from floating around the room. You can download Haakon’s source files by pressing the “Download this design button”.
No matching videos
We had a very very successful first test flight with our hexacopter. Extremely cool feeling to CNC mill your own propellers and then see them take off into the sky. Press the “Download this design button” to get our drawings for laser cutting and cnc milling. We would love all kinds of help on developing the flight electronics with the FabLab PCB milling process. A more detailed tutorial on building your own is coming soon.