A dog's tale of mobility

BME seniors design 3D-printed prosthetic leg

By Grant Guggisberg

Before they entered the workforce and began developing the next generation of medical devices or finding new ways to integrate technology into health care, a trio of biomedical engineering seniors spent a semester solving a different type of problem.

Part of the experience for undergraduate seniors within the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering is a capstone course designed to prepare outgoing students to solve real-world problems with real clients similar to the ones they’ll encounter once they start their engineering careers.

The team of Clay Hardin, Stephen Mitchell and Tate Steele had the opportunity to build a 3D-printed prosthetic leg for a 175-pound English mastiff dog named Trace.

The project’s goal was to improve Trace’s quality of life by allowing him to move around more easily through the use of the prosthetic leg. While this product exists on the market and could be purchased elsewhere, full-limb prosthetics for a dog this large are difficult to find and prohibitively expensive. The team’s secondary goal was to design an interchangeable and adjustable limb in three sections: the socket, the shaft and the foot.

The team went through multiple rounds of testing and fitting, ultimately arriving at a prosthetic limb that was left with Trace for full-time use. In its final report, the team wrote there were still aspects of the design that could be improved upon, but the three were happy with the final result.

The project also left the door open for future classes to pick up where this team left off and continue to improve the device for Trace.