Love this! The Lego prosthetic arm that children can create and hack themselves

[malaise]

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2015/jul/22/lego-prosthetic-arm-that-kids-can-hack-themselves
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Children could soon see their favourite toy grafted on to the end of their arm, thanks to designs for Lego prosthetics that allow everything from mechanical diggers to laser-firing spaceships to be screwed on to the end of a child’s limb.

Iko is the work of the Chicago-based Colombian designer, Carlos Arturo Torres, and is a modular system that allows children to customise their own prosthetics with the ease of clicking together plastic bricks. The only limit is their imagination – and what they can find at the bottom of the Lego box.

Designed with Lego’s Future Lab, the Danish toy company’s experimental research department, and Cirec, a Colombian foundation for physical rehabilitation, the modular prosthetic incorporates myoelectric sensors that register the activity of the muscle in the stump and send a signal to control movement in the attachment. A processing unit in the body of the prosthetic contains an engine compatible with Lego Mindstorms, the company’s robotics line, which lets the wearer build an extensive range of customised, programmable limbs.

“There had to be a right balance between a playful experience and something functional,” says Torres, who recently won a Core 77 design award for the project. “Something that could allow kids to explore their creativity, something they could be proud of. Sometimes a functional element is everything they need – but at other times it might be a spaceship, a doll’s house, a telescope, a video game controller or a swim fin.”