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Core NACE Competencies of the Project
Core NACE Competencies of the Project
Technology
Technology
The technology competency is understanding and leveraging technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals (NACE 2025).
Through this project we have combined the use of several technologies to achieve our goals, two of the most impactful being 3D printing and machine learning. A major inefficiency of prosthetics is the time it takes to produce the device for the recipient. By making our model 3D printable, this month long process can be cut down to days. Using 3D printable materials also significantly reduces the cost of the device, increasing accessibility for a broader range of people. We also decided to implement a machine learning component to our device that would allow the device to continue to properly and efficiently read electrical impulses sent by the user's muscles and produce an accurate thumb movement. By learning about and implementing machine learning, the device is able to grow with the recipient since the strength of electrical impulses sent by muscles changes with age, in turn increasing the longevity of the prosthetic.
Teamwork
Teamwork
The teamwork competency is building and maintaining collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals, while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities (NACE 2025).
Teamwork has been a huge component of this project. Since there are multiple components to the development of the device (3D modeling/printing, coding, electric circuitry, and polymer synthesis) we have needed to build our team of a diverse body of people. Within our research team, two of us are majoring in biomedical engineering, one of us is majoring in chemical engineering, and one of use is majoring in computer engineering. Additionally, we will be partnering with Dr. Dominik Konkolewicz who has done extensive research in polymer synthesis. Having diverse expertise amongst the people on our team has allowed us to enhance the abilities of our device, in turn, further closing the gap between functionality of a human hand and a low cost prosthetic device. Through a diverse team, we have also been able to increase the efficiency of our work because we are able to divide work in a way that aligns with our different strengths and areas of study. This way, we can be working on multiple aspects of the project at once and each aspect can be done to a greater capacity since it is worked on by team members that have a greater understanding of the topic and task.
Critical Thinking
Critical Thinking
The critical thinking competency is identifying and responding to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information (NACE 2025).
This project has greatly tested and enhanced our critical thinking. Creating our device was an especially unique challenge because we are creating a product to solve a problem that none of us have faced for people in situations that we have never experienced. Since we were taking the e-NABLE prosthetic device and modifying it, we spent several days examining the device and putting ourselves in the shoes of a recipient to be able to understand the limitations in functionality of the device. This process is what led us to focus on thumb mobility because we found that the human thumb is perhaps the most crucial finger for hand functionality and the e-NABLE model has extremely limited thumb mobility. Knowing that we wanted to focus on thumb mobility, we faced the other challenge of keeping our new model low cost and quick to assemble. The recipients of our prosthetic could be anyone, however, we are intentionally designing for people in low socioeconomic areas and war ridden countries so if we could not keep costs low and assembling time to a few days, the efficacy of the project would diminish.
Equity and Inclusion
Equity and Inclusion
The equity and inclusion competency is demonstrating awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different local and global cultures; engaging in anti-oppressive practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism and inequity (NACE 2025).
This project has challenged our team to consider and apply the different experiences and realities of different groups around the world. The reason why this project challenges us in this way is because the underlying inspiration for our device is to increase access to prosthetic devices that restore a greater amount of functionality for groups that typically would either not have access or only have access to very basic prosthetic devices. For example, people in war ridden countries or areas would experience increased demand for prosthetics, resulting in an increased wait to begin the process of fitting and designing a device for them on top of the already month long process. Additionally the drastic increase in people with the inability to work in such countries significantly limits the prosthetic devices they can afford and, unfortunately, the lower cost prosthetic devices do not restore most of the person's dexterity and functionality.
Image sources: Google Gemini
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