As an athlete who tore his ACL and meniscus in 2023, I have had a lot of experience with learning how to walk again. To this day, I still practice my rehab exercises. However, I always felt like there was never an ideal leg brace that fit my needs.

My knee braces were always one of two extremes:

1) Maximum support with no movement.

2) Free movement, but minimal support.

As a result, I knew I had to design my own knee brace. In order to make this product work for both myself and those around me, it had to have the following conditions:

• A servo motor that provided variable support to the knee.

• Enough power in the motor to properly support the leg.

• Sensors to activate and deactivate the motor at the correct positions while walking.

• Modular, compliant design for rapid prototyping.

With these constraints in mind, I got to work.

With a flex sensor and gyroscope in order to detect leg position/movement and an ESP32 microcontroller to determine motor activation, we had a working product. We even gave our product a fitting bear theme!

We eventually had the opportunity to present our prototype at the Jacob's Design Expo: a prototyping competition against 26 other design teams. With representatives from Boeing, PG&E, and Intuit judging the competition, there was a lot of pressure on our shoulders. The result? We won!

The experience I gained from being able to work on a project so dear to me was invaluable for my skills as an engineer. I learned a lot about prototyping, compliant systems, and working with ESP32 microcontrollers.

MEDIA GALLERY