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The students plan to continue working on their project as they enter college.

“Furthermore, we have obtained patent-pending status for our design and have advocated for increased access to prosthetic devices in underserved areas,” Deoras said.

So how did the students improve on the standard design?

“Our design combines the benefits of multiple auxetic geometries—Re-entrant, Chiral, and Star—into hybrid structures optimized for strength, flexibility, and manufacturability. The first hybrid, Re-entrant/Star, incorporates the inward angles of the re-entrant geometry and the structural bars of the star geometry, resulting in enhanced rigidity while maintaining flexibility. The second hybrid, Re-entrant/Chiral, utilizes the re-entrant inward angles combined with circular nodes from the chiral design, offering improved stability under multi-directional forces,” Deoras said.

“The third hybrid, Chiral/Star, integrates the star geometry’s supporting beams with chiral circular nodes, focusing on energy absorption and resilience. All designs were parametrized in CAD software to allow for further customization and scaling for prosthetic applications. Through computational testing, we determined that the Re-entrant/Star design was the strongest, but the other geometries have applications in situations that require greater flexibility and movement.”

The high schoolers have created digital prototypes of the designs using Fusion 360, a cloud-based platform that designs and manufactures products.

The prototypes were evaluated using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to simulate stress-strain behavior under a 10,000 N load, Deoras explained. FEA is a computer-based method that predicts how a product will react to real-world forces.

“The simulations generated force-displacement and stress-strain curves for each hybrid geometry, allowing us to assess their mechanical properties,” Deoras said.

“While physical prototypes have not yet been fabricated, the FEA results indicate that the designs are promising for 3D printing and prosthetic applications. Future work involves optimizing the prototypes for additive manufacturing and real-world testing.”

The students recently distributed their findings to various medical centers, including Penn Medicine Princeton Health and RWJBarnabas Health, and are currently awaiting feedback.

“We have also presented our findings to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and they were impressed by our project and believe it has great potential to impact the field of biomedical engineering,” Deoras said.

Although the students have made great strides in their design, they want to make their work accessible.

They presented their work to the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO) through the Global Partnership Exchange. Through this connection the students were able to present their findings to a broader audience, allowing them to further the initiative of increasing access to prosthetics in developing countries.

“The future of ProXetics centers on advancing both the technical and societal impact of our work. While we have tested our design extensively using computational methods like finite element analysis, we aim to validate its effectiveness further through physical testing on biomechanical rigs,” Deoras said.

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“Additionally, we plan to expand our advocacy efforts to reach more countries, raising awareness about the need for improved prosthetic access worldwide. We would also like to secure a patent for our innovative design, which would help us to bring our solution to the public and transform the lives of individuals in need.”

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