UKZN student's new arm wins plaudits.

Details -- Drew van der Riet, a student in UKZN's Mechanical Engineering department, has won plaudits for his invention of a new kind of prosthetic arm.

Van der Riet revealed the prosthesis as his entry to the 2013 ‘Step-Up Technology Innovation Competition’, under the Ideas in Development” category for the Health and Bio Technology sector.

This arm automatically analyze the brain signals and controls arm movements according to them. Now you can imagine what it can be for physically handicapped people who do not have arms.

It ended up being voted the joint winner at the Microsoft Offices in Johannesburg. The other winning entry belonged to Xoliswa Malinga and Malegola Mohlala, who developed a spray that makes removing false hair extensions less painful.

Van der Riet's design seeks to use cutting edge research in the field of upper limb electromyography (EMG) prosthetics to restore a sense of touch to the person wearing the prosthetic, while a new control system is under development to make using it a bit easier.

With the help of new manufacturing techniques, the UKZN student also hopes to reduce manufacturing costs. According to UKZN van der Riet developed a proof of concept for the project during his masters with Dr Riaan Stopforth.

“As part of the prize for winning the competition I have won a bundle of business support that will hopefully help me in starting an advanced prosthetics company in South Africa in the near future,” said van der Riet in a statement.