consolejockey

I just got through watching this series of videos of Dean Kamen from the All Things D: D6 conference, where he talks about his team’s work on the mind blowingly cool prosthetic arm nicknamed the “Luke Arm.” Due to the increase in effectiveness of body amour and huge advances military field medicine, wounded soldiers are far more likely to survive serious injuries than they were even in the first Gulf War. Though more soldiers are coming home alive, they often do so with missing limbs. Kamen and his team were tasked to create a new generation of prosthetic arms that come as close as ingenuity and technology can to replacing a missing limb.

The results of Kamen and his team’s work shown in the videos is inspiring and a reminder of two things. Design is all about problem solving and due to that, design, along with engineering and a host of other disciplines, can make a huge difference in people’s lives.