Frances Devanbu
In an Olin class Called Engineering for Humanity,
teams of olin studens were partnered with older adults in the Needham, Wellesley, Natick area. I worked with Cindy, a quadruple amputee unsatisfied with her current Microelectronic and aesthetic prosthetic and two other students from babson and wellesley to design something with her. We beganb with an ethnography and person profile to find an opportunity. We went through dozens of rapid prototyped iterations ending with a fully functional prototype to fit her specific needs.
Cindy at the age of 60 due to complications of a heart attack had to drastically change the ways she used her hands. When we went to her house for the first time, she showed us over 25,000 thousand dollars worth of professional, prosthetics telling us how unsatisfied she was. She wanted something light, easy to use, that expanded on the articulation she already had in her left hand, not hinder it, as her other prosthetic.
