A Zombie Got My Leg Challenge: Making Makeshift Legs
The inside and outside of a student-made prosthetic leg prototype.Copyright 2014 Megan Ketchum, University of Houston
Students experience the engineering design process as they design and construct lower-leg prostheses in response to a hypothetical zombie apocalypse scenario. Like the well-known Apollo 13 story during which engineers were challenged to fix the crippled spacecraft with limited supplies in order to save astronauts' lives, in this activity, students act as engineers during an imaginary disaster in which a group member's leg was amputated in order to survive a zombie attack. Building on what they learned and researched in the associated lesson, they design and fabricate a replacement prosthetic limb using given specific starting material and limited additional supplies, similar to how engineers design for individuals while working within constraints. A more-advanced scenario challenges students to design a prosthesis that is able to provide a more-specific movement function.
Engineering teams typically follow the steps of the cyclical engineering design process to guide them as they develop new solutions, products and systems. Engineering inventions and innovations are the result of specific, goal-directed work, which includes clear identification of the criteria and constraints of a problem. Engineers and medical doctors design new materials and devices to create prostheses that enable amputees to become mobile and even perform specific activities, like running and swimming. In many cases, engineers only have limited supplies to design and build a necessary device. The Apollo 13 story is an example of what engineers can accomplish when they work together to solve life-threatening problems and refuse to fail.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate the use of the engineering design process and the importance of testing prototypes.
- Explain how forces that the body incurs affect the design of a device.
- List factors that need to be considered when designing prostheses.