Materials for a prosthetic foot

Analyse data to find the best material for a prosthetic foot

The development of new materials is having a huge impact on all of our lives. This engineering activity for kids encourages students to look at a variety of materials and find out which would be the best for ankle and foot prosthetics. Different materials will perform in a variety of different ways, and it is through the analysis of the materials that students will be able to work out which would be the best for a prosthetic foot.

This fun STEM activity is designed as a main lesson exercise for secondary school students. Learners will carry out some data manipulation to find the best material from which to make a prosthetic foot. The activity offers strong opportunities for cross-curricular work with Mathematics.

The class will be split into teams. Students will work as teams of engineering materials consultants and have to find the best material from which to make a prosthetic foot.

Using the related handouts, which can be found below, students will plot graphs of stress against strain for seven different materials and calculate the gradient in order to find the stiffness for each material.

Based on this information, students should select which of the seven materials is the most suitable for the construction of the foot.

Students will present their recommendations to the rest of the class and the other teams will comment on their recommendations.

What you will need:
Graph paper
Pen/pencil

The engineering context
The development of new materials with incredible properties is changing the way we live. From LCD TVs to super light airliners, these materials have quickly found their way into pretty much all of the modern technology around us.

One area where modern materials have made a huge impact is in the development of prosthetic devices. Some of these devices are beginning to outperform ‘natural’ body parts.

The resources within this, and the related activities, encourage students to investigate the properties of smart materials and carry out some data manipulation. Students will also explore the possible moral and ethical issues associated with people potentially choosing to replace healthy body parts with artificial prostheses because they offer higher performance.

By the end of this activity students will be able to make the link between material properties and material usage. They will be able to understand how smart materials are used in a real life context and they will be able to use and manipulate material-related data.