Introduction (Part 1)

So I decided to look into the start of Prosthesis. I looked up what the purpose of prosthetic legs was and how they intend to improve such equipment over time.

The advancement of prosthetics is extremely evident during the later half of the 20^th century and continued onward into the 21^st century. The goal is always to try to achieve and improve the prosthetics available for people. The closer the prosthetics can function as a substitute for the lost limb, the better it is. By closer, it means the efficiency and compatibility to the human body. Of course, without suitable design style and material, a non biological substitute can not compare to a human being limb.

That start brings up the question: What is a suitable material for the advancement and development of prosthetic legs?

Research Question

After I went deeper into my research I decided to narrow my topic onto the Flex-Foot Cheetah. Oscar PIstorius was the man who ran the 2012 Olympics running events with two transtibial prosthetic legs. I questioned how they were able to design such an equipment that allowed him to compete with able bodied racers. At the same time, the design of such equipment can’t be so overwhelming that it will give Pistorius an unfair advantage against other runners. Thus the question I finalized was: How did the introduction of carbon fiber and the mechanical design of the flex-foot cheetah prosthesis enable it to be suitable equipment for running competitions? (Considering that the Flex-Foot Cheetah was composed primarily by carbon fiber designs).

I will be tossing out the ergonomic focus because I was not able to find sufficient information regarding the comparison between the ergonomics

Beginning of the research

Starting a research project is never easy considering my novice understanding of Design Technology, especially of it under the requirements of International Baccalaureate extended essay. The first step I guess would be to define my question and try to specify the information down. 

How was ergonomics considered in the development of prosthetics?

This question is actually too broad to be considered in the extended essay. The thousand different types of prosthetics and different ways of injury makes narrowing on the specific design impossible. Thus, in order to narrow down the question, I tried to decide what portion of prosthetics should I focus on. That brought me to sports and artificial leg prosthetics. How do athletes compete in sports with artificial legs and how were those legs designed to minimize discomfort? The refined question was then:

How was ergonomics considered in the design of leg prosthetics made for running?

Now I just have to focus on the design of running artificial legs and how they are fit to the human body.