Skip to main content
Intellect

Designing a prosthetic leg suited for developing nations

Two mechanical engineering students are working to help those in developing countries get a leg up on life.

Thousands of individuals with missing limbs, sometimes the result of land mines, have no access to affordable prosthetics. BYU undergrads David Williams and Russell Dibb hope to help change this.

As president of the bioengineering club, Williams wanted a project where the club members could do research and serve others. Inspired by a prosthetic foot made in India, he decided to take the idea one step further and design a below-the-knee prosthetic leg. The new design will focus on making a product that could be manufactured with materials found in a developing nation. And they’d like to do it all at a fraction of the cost of current prosthetics.

With the club hard at work, Williams and Dibb are specifically focusing on the shock absorption aspect of the leg. The final product needs to be flexible enough for comfort, yet stiff enough to function. They are researching which material should be used. The pair is also working to make the appendage durable enough for the many roads ahead.

Writer: Patrick Perkins

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

Innovative group of BYU students roll out new AI tech to solve parking problems

March 19, 2024
A group of enterprising BYU students aim to significantly — if not entirely — reduce parking violations in paid parking lots, college and otherwise. And their idea, an AI detection and tracking system called Spot Parking (more on that in a minute), just got a major endorsement and $12,000 in cash by winning the 2024 BYU Student Innovator of the Year (SIOY) competition.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

Q&A with President Reese on BYU’s undergraduate teaching focus

March 15, 2024
In this Q&A series with President Reese, he shares more about the seven initiatives he shared in his 2023 inaugural response and how they apply to BYU employees.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

BYU math videos aim to transform equations into excitement

March 13, 2024
From calculating the perfect bottle flip to understanding how much force is behind a penny dropped off a skyscraper, Math the World videos creatively answer the age-old math question, “When will I ever use this?”
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText=