Students research multi-functional joints for "penguins"

(NLDO) – The story of a "penguin" student and his journey to bring multifunctional joints to the disabled has moved many people.

The multi-function joint is a competition product of a group of 4 students from Van Lang University, Fulbright University Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology.

Student Nguyen Ngoc Nhut practices disassembling and wearing the multi-function joint.

At the final round of the 2024 Product Design and Innovation Competition for People with Disabilities held on December 21 at Ho Chi Minh City College of Economics, this product won the First Prize and received a lot of support from experts.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhut, a student at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, confided that he had an accident in 10th grade, which caused his hands to become necrotic.

"At that time, the family had to scramble everywhere to find more than 23,000 USD to send me to Korea to get a prosthetic arm. However, this prosthetic arm had many disadvantages such as prolonged movement causing skin ulcers on the hand, shoulder pain, difficulty in personal activities, and the process of wearing the prosthetic arm required someone to assist,..." - Nhut said.

Sinh viên nghiên cứu bộ khớp đa năng cho người — Multi-function joint researched by student group

During his university years, Nhut met a group of like-minded friends who wanted to create a product to support the disadvantaged and those with mobility difficulties. From there, the group of students started to realize their idea, researching and developing a multi-functional joint for people with upper limb disabilities.

Group leader La Thi Nhu Muoi, a student at Fulbright University Vietnam, said the joint fully meets the functional requirements to support people with disabilities at a reasonable cost (about 500,000 VND).

"The multi-function joint has 2 parts: the part that connects directly to the stump of the hand, can be adjusted in size and fit to each disabled person; the joint part is used to replace the hand to hold a spoon, cook, type, use a computer mouse, etc.," the group leader introduced.

The group conducted experiments with about 20 people with arm disabilities, most of whom were able to use them proficiently and perform simple tasks in daily life such as eating, cleaning, holding objects, etc.

In the future, the team will apply more integrated technology into the joint.

Representing the jury, Ms. Ho Thi Mong Thu, Deputy Director of Tam Nguyen Viet Fund, said that the product is very meaningful and practical for people with disabilities, especially with its reasonable price, easy to disassemble and use.

Ms. Thu proposed to support the group in connecting the product to patients in Ben San leprosy village (Binh Duong). "With this multi-functional joint, patients can eat and do personal hygiene by themselves" - Ms. Thu said.

In the final round, the second prize went to the project Smart Vietnamese Braille Support Technology Device for Visually Impaired Students by a group of students from Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics.

Third Prize went to two projects: an application to support communication, learning and information acquisition for the hearing impaired by students of the University of Technology (VNU-HCM) and an application to accompany autistic children by students of Nguyen Du Secondary School (District 1).

The 2024 Product and Technology Design and Innovation Contest for People with Disabilities is organized by the Center for Youth Science and Technology Development and the Ho Chi Minh City Youth Union.

After more than 3 months of implementation, the contest received 54 creative products from 157 contestants from 32 units nationwide, selecting 14 excellent products for the finals.

The competition aims to find and develop practical innovative products and technologies to serve the disabled, the disadvantaged and the vulnerable in society. Impressive projects will be supported to complete and transfer to the Support Centers and Education Centers for the disabled to use.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/sinh-vien-nghien-cuu-bo-khop-da-nang-cho-nguoi-canh-cut-196241221211217662.htm