Category: Prosthesis Design

Para Sliding Sports Gaining Momentum

Last month saw the inaugural World Cup Para Bobsleigh and Skeleton races held at Igls (Innsbruck, Austria) on January 23rd with the second round held in St Moritz on the 31st of January. Team GB have shown a strong presence with Corie Mapp (see photo) winning Gold medal in the Monobob at Igls and Matthew Richardson getting Silver medal in the Skeleton at Igls and St Moritz. There has been other interesting news in the world of Para sliding sports with Jon-Allan Butterworth and Heather Mills both competing in Channel 4’s Celebrity Winter Sports program The Jump. Jon-Allan, using prosthetic attachments adapted to fit the skeleton, clocked the fastest time out of all the male celebrities. Heather Mills lost her head to head skeleton race against former Olympian Louise Hazel meaning she had to tackle the ski jump. Despite a successful jump of 12m she was narrowly beaten by Lady Victoria Hervey to become the first of the ladies eliminated from the show.

Corie Mapp – gold medal winner

Bionics and regulations within Disability Sports

A TED talk from MIT’s Dr Hugh Herr on his labs latest Bionic limb technology has got us, at the RTSIC, thinking about the role that more active prosthetics play in the world of disability Sports. The general ruling from the IPC is that equipment that results in athletic performance being generated by machines, engines or robotic mechanisms, the IPC monitor the use of technology within events to ensure that no athlete gains an unrealistic advantage. There are inevitably some disagreements as to what constitutes an advantage, examples such as Heather Mills prosthetic leg being deemed ineligible for use at the Paralympic Winter Games or Oscar Pistorius’ claims that Alan Oliviera’s blades were too long and gave an unfair advantage in the men’s T44 200m in London 2012.

It seems a difficult aspect of performance to assess, how much of an athletes performance can be attributed to the technology within their prosthetics? But also should there be more scope in the system to allow for the use of active prosthetics and encourage their development.

Action commences in Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics

While we are bracing ourselves for another onslaught of wind and rain, Team GB’s Winter Olympic hopefuls in the sub-tropical climate of Sochi are gearing up for action as the first events have begun today.

First news from Sochi is that GB’s Jamie Nicholls has qualified for the Slopestyle (snowboarding) finals on Saturday and his team mate Billy Morgan has a second chance to make the finals through the semi-finals on Saturday.

Keeping the winter sports theme, check out this great cartoon from George Washington University. It’s a really nice way of demonstrating the great work that goes on within the Bioengineering Sector and trying to attract the next generation of young Bioengineers.

Finally, there was an interesting story on the BBC regarding the development sensor technology, within a bionic hand, to enable the user to be feel the form, stiffness and texture of an object as they grab it. This work forms part of a whole body of interesting research into the use of electrical stimulus to provide both feedback and control over prosthetic limbs.

RTSIC Case Study

If the article above has caught your interest then check out this RTSIC 2nd Year Bioengineering project from 2011/12, which utilised Electromyography  to enable gear changing on a bicycle for cyclists with upper limb prostheses.