This week AAcs has been focusing on finishing our final prototype.. not so final though because we can still make some changes in the future according to how the testing goes and how we feel we can make every piece better. Maybe just having a final set design is good for now. Our mission statement is, “AACS uses the anatomy to create accurate, comfortable, and injury preventive devices.” This is important because we are focusing on the knee joint for runners. According to PunlMed.gov, there are 56% of runners that get hurt while practicing their sport. We are trying to reduce this percentage as much as possible with our brace. We guarantee our brace to be comfortable by not having any straps that might irritate skin in contact with the skin, allow movement of the knee in ways it’s supposed to move and reduce the ability to move the knee joint to sides it shouldn’t or could cause a tear or injury.
A cause for a torn ACL is a sudden change in direction or pivot against a locked knee. The knee is a hinge joint that only extends on one plane. Our design protects rotation of the joint on both sides of the knee. Our design consists of a compression sleeve for stability, batting cushion for comfort and a rubber gripping both on top and on the bottom on the inside so it won’t slide upwards or downward or just in general move out of place while running.
So far we have our final design and we have tested for comfort, the temperature and other tests will be done further along. We have a full understanding of our anatomy, for example how the main bones to do with the knee joint are the Tibia and Fibula in your lower leg, patella is your knee cap and the Femur on the upper leg. We understand the quadriceps muscles produce knee extension which also pulls on the ACL. While the hamstring muscles relieve stress on the ACL by pulling on the opposing direction from the quadriceps muscles. We have given a presentation to our class about our ideas and how we are working towards providing a healthier and easier lifestyle. The AACS team and I are ready to use the anatomy to create accurate, comfortable and injury preventive devices for runners in seek of helping reduce the percentage of you tearing your ACL.
StarPathDesign 
The anatomy is very well described it gives the reader a better view of the purpose of your prototype and a better insight of how the bones and articulating bones are working together and can be injured – Jenie Jaimes