This week was a rollercoaster from start to finish. This week we spent a lot of time in technical and interpersonal workshops, refining design criteria, and actually prototyping! Overall, the week felt very productive and I am confident that we managed to set up a deep understanding of our problem space and direction for the upcoming weeks. Some of the workshops we had covered things I would initially have thought were more relevant to personal development rather than a technical design project based internship, such as how to have difficult conversations and microagressions. I thought these workshops were teaching us things that were only minimally relevant in comparison to other technically relevant topics. But soon after the workshops I realized they protect one of the most valuable things that we are getting from this internship: our relationships, connections and workability with other people in the community.

This week, we made three different sizes of the kinetic hand model from the e-NABLE network, as suggested to us by Arinze. After our hyrdocal cast model from the previous week came out extremely still damp and crumbly, we knew we would have to meet up with Eric Jr. again to recast. After running another test mold, we developed a much better process to follow for our meeting on Friday. A lot of the changes we made were common sense, and came from spending a little more time reading the instructions on the container. I realized, even though we had done a little bit of research and experimentation, in our rush to move onto prototyping and researching, we ended up having to spend even more time on it. Next time it would be more time efficient to spend a little bit more time planning something initially the first time to prevent possibly having to redo it later. We learned how to 3D print with different materials such as PLA, TPU, and ninja flex.

Our week closed with another meeting with Eric Jr., his father, grandma and two younger brothers. His father reiterated to us the hand was to be used specifically for basketball rather than daily life. His philosophy in doing so was that in having been born with one hand, Eric Jr. wouldn’t become more efficient with two hands in the same way that we, born with two hands, wouldn’t know how to use a third. This comparison definitely helped spark understanding and thoughts of why we feel the need to “modify” differently abled people to get as close to “normal standard as possible.” This meeting also gave us some extra insight into our models and what and where we would need to iterate the following week. We learned that the 60% size was the closest fit, and that the hand would need extra reinforcements to protect and strengthen his wrist on his left hand. Additionally, we reaffirmed our thoughts of moving the thumb out of center and more to the side in an open hand position. Overall, meeting Eric again was such a delight again and has fueled me once again to get him the best prosthetic possible by the end of this internship!