MAGGIE CAMERON
SENIOR REPORTER
Lars Kristjansen is surrounded by intricate looking gadgets, a white board covered in math equations and his three project partners; two hard at work, the other fast asleep in front of his computer.
These are the electromechanical engineering technology students that have endured endless sleepless nights working on Kristjansen’s’ brain child, an automated leg brace for people with diminished leg function.
What they’re working on is a class requirement, but this team takes their work seriously. Kristjansen, along with Milad Saidmohammadi, Evan Zimmerman and Christopher Davis, make up the “E-knee project” team. They are the only team in Neal Mohammed’s electromechanical engineering technology program to receive a research grant from the college to help support their work, and they need the money to develop a highly technological leg brace.
) Evan Zimmerman, Lars Kristjansen, Chis Davis and Milad Saidmohammadi stand with different parts that are helping them to design their KAFO. (Maggie Cameron)
“Automated knee-ankle-foot orthotics exist already,” said Kristjansen. He explained that a regular leg brace allows one to bear weight on their leg without it folding, but because these braces are so stiff it is difficult to walk properly.
“What we’re doing is building a locking mechanism that is variable. There is nothing on the market like it. Plus, we’re putting really smart control into it,” he said.
Kristjansen and Davis explain how the leg goes through a very complicated series of motions as it takes a step.
“We’re building an automated locking mechanism that has sensory feedback, and is controlled by a micro processor that will allow the knee to lock and unlock during the different phases of gait,” said Kristjansen.
Program co-ordinator Neal Mohammed said his students are making very good progress.
“I am very pleased to be working on such an interesting project that can one day help folks in need of this type of technology,” he said.
The team spent the first semester designing, and are now hard at work building, machining and programming.
“We’re at the stage now where we’re just kind of just getting some of the components together and understanding their principals,” said Kristjansen. “Our goal for the end of the semester is to establish proof of concept, in that it doesn’t have to be sexy, it doesn’t have to be functionally light or too quick. It just has to show that the concept works.”
Saidmohammadi said some nights the team spends long hours at school, and then go back to Kristjansen’s lab to work late into the night.
Davis said the team has become friends over the course of the semesters.
The entire team agrees the work they’re doing is rewarding, using their interests and expertise to hopefully one day change someone’s life.
I wear leg brace and have a very active life your invention would be fantastic even more when i know how I can get one.