Gnashtaru

Hi Jennifer!

I'm going to be back writing a longer message here to give more background but i'm designing a bionic arm with the intention of it surpassing the capabilities of the human arm. I know it's a pipe dream but it's my passion and I think it's amazingly fun to work on.

I'm a disabled Iraq war vet as well, although my injuries are purely nerve damage and I have not lost much functionality, mostly sensation in my feet. I just can't use my toes is all. I have it much better than many vets and they are a large part of why I'm designing this arm.

I have already been in contact with The Buried Life guys who helped a girl named Torri get a free bionic arm, Easton Lachappelle is a friend of mine on FaceBook, and a few others including a disabled biologist who is working with me to design him a glove he can wear to restore the grip strength he lost in his accident.

I'll be back to post some pics of my project, and I'm not really sure what I could ask you because I have already read a huge amount on this topic, but of course it's all just science publications and online information.

Ultimately the major limitation I have on my project other than real funding and a lab of course is the neurotech part of it. That's not really something a hobbyist can do at home LOL. I'm hoping someday to expand my design to incorporate neurotech so it restores touch sensation and is controlled just like a biological arm is.

Gah! LOL It's so exciting to have you here doing an AMA!

ok BRB I'll edit this as I go.

EDIT: Some pictures pertaining to my project. http://imgur.com/a/Bvt1P#0

EDIT2: Here is a copy of the letter I sent to the Buried Life guys when they asked for some more information. It'll save me a lot of typing explaining everything.

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"I'm a 16 year and counting veteran of the U.S. Army (national Guard) and spent a year in Baghdad in 2008. I'm a signalman in the military. Communications Specialist. Before I went to Iraq I worked as a radio systems tech and installed a new digital E-911 system in a couple counties on the N.D. Mn border. Been a hobbyist dealing with electronics my whole life. My father is a self taught electronic engineer and just tested out without school years ago.
Built a buzzer for a mock game show for school in kindergarten. Designed and built an electric guitar with an effects system built in and stereo output a while ago. I'm also a musician. Been playing guitar for for about 18 years. I have been designing and building various electronics for years and years.

When I got home from Iraq I worked for the Guard full time for three years in a CCMRF unit. (First C is Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, High-Explosives, then the rest is Consequence Management Response Force) Basically if a train carrying anhydrous ammonia derailed or a dirty bomb went off.. stuff like that, we were the first responders. After that mission ended I went back to school. I'm currently enrolled in the local Wind Technology and Flight Simulator Technician associates courses where I live. Mostly just because they have electronics training.

So, anyway, that's a little bit of my background.
When I was a kid I built a robotic arm in 7th grade for the science fair. Even though I was supposed to be at least a freshman they let me enter to compete and I made it to state level competitions with my design.
Ever since then I have wanted to build a fully articulated robotic arm.
My time in Iraq and seeing the effects on veterans who were disabled really opened my eyes to the need for better technology in this field, and with some prompting from friends I finally gave in and started working on it once I saw the creative power behind the Arduino microcontrollers that recently came out. You can pretty much program them to do anything and interact with any type of electronic hardware.

I did a LOT of research for a few months about new innovations that have come out and realized what I wanted to make was a bionic arm based on human anatomy that not only mimiced the human arm, but surpassed it. I am really interested in future tech and the whole singularity concept and human augmentation.

While designing the skeleton for my arm I ran into information about the new booming technology with 3D printing. I am designing the skeleton for my arm in 3D software for printing on a 3D printer I built. Then I will use the plastic prints to cast aluminum copies and will have an entirely aluminum skeletal support structure. (I also learned how to cast metal for this and built my own furnace). The movement won't be done with traditional motors. I see the big hindrance with that being they are slow if they are powerful or weak if they are fast. Also battery packs to run an arm like that are bulky. So I decided to use McKibben air-muscles to move the arm. They work like and mimic human muscles. I'm building an analog of every major muscle or group of muscles in the human arm out of McKibben muscles and am designing full functionality into the arm. The wrist doesn't simply pivot like most prosthesis, it has an actual pronator teres and supinator muscle that rotate the radius and ulna around each other like the human arm does. Also the thumb is fully opposable and moves freely like a real thumb does. The advantage to McKibben muscles is they work like our own, are very fast and strong, more-so than the real thing if designed right, and don't require any energy whatsoever to hold a position once they are in place. The tricky part is controlling them accurately. I'm working on three different systems to control the arm. Any one of them can be used and someone who wants to wear the arm as a prosthesis will be able to choose from them, as well as choose how much of the arm is needed based on disability.

1.  A sleeve a full armed person wears that controlls the arm by making it mimic the users movements.  

This is actually the simplest method to build. I'm putting a variable resistance stretching band coupled to a voltage divider circuit in each muscle in the arm and the same in the glove. They put out a reference voltage which is interpreted by the Arduino and the programming either fills or vents a muscle of air depending on if the binary value assigned to each sensor is greater or smaller than the one being outputted by the controller sleeve. Basically the Arduino tries to make the binary values match. once they do it closes all the valves and the muscle holds it's position until you move. Requiring no energy to do so. So, for example if you needed to have the arm hold something straight out in front of it that was heavy, you just pick it up, extend the arm, and turn the controller off. The muscles will hold their air indefinitely and hold the item out forever without requiring power.

2.  EMG nerve ennervation type input.

The Arduino can be paired with small EMG (low voltage nerve signal) sensors attached to the arm that sense when the user flexes their own muscle and flexes the corresponding one in the arm. If the user is an amputee they can use muscles that remain in the arm to control any of the equivalent muscles in the arm from the portion they are missing on their own. So I could give someone amputated below the elbow a new forearm and hand and they would flex their upper arm and chest muscles to trigger different movements in the arm. This is a lot like what Torri got. The only difference is mine will be air powered. Oh, I forgot to mention. The air is stored in two small 500ml tanks worn like a backpack. This is of course limited and the compressor I fill them with is still run by 110v AC power from a wall so it's not completely mobile for long periods. I'm working on that. I think this will be the best eventual technology for prosthetics but i want to see the day where it isn't through sensor pads and is tied directly into the users nervous system and they move it the same exact way they move a real arm. no learning curve. Of course I have no background in neuroscience other than what I learn on my own but I see my design being great for this once it's more readily available. I actually volunteered to be a test subject on something like this in Great Brighton but never got a response. LOL

 3.  Mind Control through EEG headset.

A company by the name Emotiv http://www.emotiv.com/ makes a headset that can be worn and calibrated very easily to a user and then programmed to send out a command that can be fed to the Arduino controller and control the arm simply by thought. it is still pretty new tech and while it's actually easy to get going, it's not very intuitive. Meaning for example if I want the arm to make a fist, I picture a puppy exactly like I did when I calibrated the headset. if I want to open it I picture my mother.. LOL whatever thought I had to think when it was programmed. So it's not super easy to use for daily use, but the tech is getting better. i honestly see this option and number 2 becoming the same thing really. Then once this tech comes out people could actually just opt to remove their own intact biological arm and replace it with a stronger bionic arm permanently. I would be first in line. That's kinda the goal of my design. To surpass the human arm in strength, speed, and sensation.

Once the tech for nerve interface is develped to where it's a realisticly viable option having sensory feedback would be an afterthought. not a perk. Right now they are working on this and the first human to "feel" again with a prosthetic just happened a few months ago. I don't know how close to actually feeling it was compared to how he would feel with his own hand but they did tie it directly in with his nervous system and it worked. The arm was only a test though and not actually worn on his body. It's coming though!

I don't have the background or means to develpe the nerve interface part of this, and am also just help back financially right now in building my prototype, but I'm much further and more in depth than I expected to be when i started on this about 6 months ago. 3D printing will be the key to making this inexpensive. I could never hope to build what I'm building right now witout 3D printing and I'm working on making my printer better as I go to keep up with my requirements.

I'm enclosing some pictures of my 3D models and hardware as it sits right now so you can get a better idea of what i'm doing, as well as a couple pics from current designs that inspired my ideas. Also some older pics from my works as it's evolved. It's not completely built yet, and I know it will work, but making it work WELL is the tricky part. That's a work in progress.

Honestly this isn't something I will ever "finish". I'm very passionate about it and will probably be improving on it indefinitely.

I should note a couple other things. When I was in Iraq the nerves in my feet died and the doctors don't know why. They went completely numb to the sense of touch and to compensate my mind reworked itself and I now use pain as a touch sensation. It is pretty debilitating. I can't walk barefoot anywhere and the smallest object putting pressure on my feet like a rough sidewalk is excruciatingly painful. I'm hopeful for the nerve tech to come along so I can restore feeling in my feet again. Until then it's tight combat boots all the time for me.
I didn't lose any friends overseas but we had injuries and I know some soldiers who were hurt pretty badly. I think they all deserve an option to improve their lives and I want to be the guy who gives it to them.

I was also contacted by a biologist who injured his hand and lost a good deal of grip strength in it. We are working together to make him a glove he wears that senses when he needs to grip and adds force to that to aid him. Our design is coming along great and his biology background really helps. I hope that partnership is the first of many that gets this project going. Right now I'm basically the starving college student type (at 36 haha) so I'm limited on what I can do but I'm making the best of it! (screw ramen noodles though yuck!)

Thanks for your interest guys! I love what you do for people and am honored you took an interest in my work!

Thanks again,"

you're not hardcore until you have driven to Hawaii.

When I was a kid my dad was learning to be a truck driver for a little while one summer while I was there. he ended up deciding it wasn't for him, but for a week or two I rode along in the back. I loved the feeling of adventure it gave me. Always seeing a new place.

Do you still get feelings like this or has it become mundane and repetitive now? What are the coolest places you have got to see that you know you wouldn't have otherwise?

Sweet! Derek and Destin you two are my favorite YouTube channels, maybe tied with Vsauce. My question is for Derek. In you video Misconceptions About the Universe You talk about entropy increasing due to the second law of thermodynamics. This is where all our free will comes from, due to quantum events making the universe nondeterministic.

But, there's an apparent contradiction here if you look at it through the lens of relativity. Relativity states all of the past and future already "are". Because there is no "now" because it all depends on your frame of reference. So the future HAS to be predetermined. Yet it's obviously not.

How is this possible?

Is it maybe that with every quantum event an entire new universe is born?

I have always thought it was pretty obvious why crime increases in communities with toughter social situations.

I mean, come on. NOBODY is going to just sit around and starve, or more importantly let their kids starve. ANYBODY, including me, would break any law there is to keep my kids safe, fed, and educated (in general). It's human instinct. It's not rocket science..

That's why I don't understand why people can't understand why higher crime rates happen in poor communities. Duh.

The best solution for crime in a given area? Resources.

Resources as far as living standard. If everyones living standard was above worrying about feeding their kids and surviving, crime would drop 80% EASILY. I say again EASILY.

It's all biology.

We are programmed to survive, and then reproduce. That's all that matters (that's what made us the way we are). If you could eliminate all the things that interfere with survival and kids being taken care of, you would eliminate almost the entirety of crime.

There are no evil people. There are just desperate people acting like they are programmed to act.

Don't even get me STARTED on drugs and alcohol and escapism. LOL

It's all part of the same dramatic play.