Human Relief // Leyla Z.

My team Human Relief is made up of Yadira, Priscilla, & I, and our joint we choose to provide protection for was the ankle, due to it being a very important body part that is frequently used in body movements. Initially we wanted either the ankle or the knee considering they’re both very important aspects in our body, but in the end we decided to stick with the ankle because we felt like we could do a lot more for it.

In this process we have had to make a model of the ankle and its joint, muscles, tendons, etc. and it was pretty hard considering we had limited time and materials we could actually use, which caused many complications. Eventually the model was finished and even though the model wasn’t the best it could be, although we still did learn quite a lot about the ankle. We really liked having to create this model prior to making an actual device because then we could actually determine what we wanted to focus on protecting or how to protect it all.

Things that I have already learned by looking at Ankle Injuries on WebMD ­helped give me lots of information about the injuries in the ankle. Such as having an ankle fracture, calcaneus bone fracture or even a torn ligament. This site also provided a list of ways they’re caused for example as you can see in the diagram you can get a fracture if you trip or fall and hit your ankle on a hard surface. It will resort in tearing your ligaments and bruising your ankle bone and sometimes your calcaneus bone.

For our design we wanted to create a sock ankle protector, so it would be comfortable for our customers to wear and prevent them from having to wear a bigger bulkier brace. Also to prevent a calcaneus bone fracture we decided to add padding to the bottom of the foot, and having a strap that starts at the calcaneus bone and wraps around to the front of the foot. In this wrap there will be a mix of gel and mesh and this will be placed directly underneath the ankle for support in case your footing becomes weary and your foot decides it wants to invert. We also thought of making a splint like support for the brace but as we found in shark week that it may not be the best idea because there were lots of question about it bothering the customer, essentially we would like the brace to have it to keep the ankle from going into that awkward inversion that sometimes does happen.

Overall I am satisfied with the way my group is working and how we are handling our project, because I feel like things are done within time. I think if we keep this pace and keep up the work and keep putting in effort there’s no doubt we will have a really good product by the end of this project.