Abstract
The C.H.I.P. is a technology that combines nanotechnology with assistive technology
with the addition of binary code and neuron signals to make two chips installed in the body to
help a paralyzed limb move. With a machine like this, a paralyzed person, instead of getting
amputation or a prosthetic, can have the chips installed and use their regular forms of movement
instead of a prosthetic, which is clumsy, slow, and less maneuverable.
Current Technology
Paralysis is an affliction that renders a limb useless because of a break in the spinal cord
that makes nerves and muscles in the limb disconnected from the brain. Doctors have tried to
restore limbs using prosthetics but never have restored it to a fast-moving limb with five
functional appendages to use like the old arm/leg. Paralysis affects almost 5.5 million people in
the United States, with most of the injuries in the Spinal Cord. This major discomfort to the
human body can make a person feel inferior and needs to be fixed, using current technology like
assistive technology, nanotechnology, and wireless signals. Our goal is to find a way to cure
paralysis.
A piece of current technology that we are using and improving is assistive technology.
Assistive technology is technology that is used by disabled people affected by things like
paralysis. An example of such technology is joysticks. Joysticks are metal sticks attached to a
box so if you lose power to an arm or leg, then you can move the joystick with the opposite limb
to help you do everyday tasks. In these cases, the joystick is usually connected to a claw or other
utility to help the paralyzed person get through everyday life. A drawback to assistive technology
is that one, it does not actually heal the person, and two, it is expensive. These two things are
what we are trying to improve.
Another technological factor that we are incorporating into our project is
Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is technology that is seen on a microscopic level to help with
security and biology, but is rarely used for medical use. Nanotech means a really small
technology that is used in military operations and at some times used for an undergoing that is
too delicate for human hands, but a drawback is that nanotech is mainly used for military use
instead of medical use, for creating mini bombs and mini robots to spy on people.
Wireless technology is another important technology in our project that we incorporate.
Wireless tech is basically a connection between two objects that have no wired connection or
other means of physical transmission between them. Wireless objects communicate by sending
radio signals that are sent in a certain pattern so when a receiver picks them up it it knows
exactly what to do and how. Wireless signals are very useful in a variety of ways including
communication, military operations, and even toys! However, wireless signals have never been
used to cure paralysis. Some disadvantages are that it is sometimes slow to connect and the range
isn’t huge.
Basically, these three technologies are what we are trying to use and improve at the same
time. Each one of these technologies will play an important role in our project. Using these three
technologies together in modern life we can hopefully find a permanent cure for paralysis.
History of
Technology
“Technology has existed and improved mankind’s way of life since the stone age and the
wheel.” People depend on technology every day. It is in many ways essential to life, in ways that
people do and do not understand. In our project the evolution of wireless, assistive, and
nanotechnology will become clearer.
As the earliest technology in our project, wireless technology started with smoke
signals, the earliest form of long-distance communication known to man. After the invention of
these
signals,
wireless evolved
until the invention of
wireless
telegraphy. Wireless telegraphy was used to
distinguish
wireless forms of
wired ones, like
the telegraph. The most significant leap in
communication from
wireless telegraphy is probably the radio (see picture), which was the first form of
transmitted other people’s words into other devices without the use of wires.
tech that
The wireless TV
was invented shortly after the radio and was the first form of wireless telegraphy that transmitted
video.
The next technology is assistive technology, a technology that also plays an important
role in our project. The first recorded form of assistive technology was a typewriter for the
disabled, invented by Pellegrino in 1808. Originally invented as a small utility for a disabled
friend, Pellegrino’s invention was inspiration for a whole line of products designed to help
disabled people. Some examples of assistive technology in modern times are joysticks, touch
screens, and trackballs, all examples of tech that helps disabled people have an easier life. In the
cases of these three, the technologies are usually connected to an arm or other utility to help
with mobility.
Nanotech is the latest and final technology that will be explored in this paper.
Nanotechnology was first dreamed up in 1959 by Richard Feynman, who believed in a
technology that could be recreated on a microscopic level. It was later in 1981 when student Eric
Drexler heard Feynman’s ideas that nanotech became a reality. Nanotech was first used for
military operations in 1995 and is still used for that today, although it has been used for making
mini cars, mini furniture, and even mini robots.
Future Technology
We are trying to solve the important, but overlooked, problem of one-limbed paralysis.
We will utilize the current technologies of wireless and nanotechnology to create our new form
of assistive technology.
First, you will see is a simplified version of what our new technology is and what it does.
Our technology, the C.H.I.P (Cerebrally Healing Internal Prosthetic) will have a pair of nanosized electronic microchips, one attached to the parietal lobe, the part of the brain that controls
how your limbs move, and the other attached to a paralyzed limb. The chip in the parietal lobe
will receive thoughts and transmit them through wireless signals into the other microchip, which
will essentially “wake up” the muscles and nerves and allow the limb to operate. Of course, the
operation might take a little more concentration (because of the mechanized control), but is much
better than the clumsy plastic fingers used on the average prosthetic arm.
We
also
have
many
other
mobility-related benefits in our invention.
Our
invention will allow complete control over
the
arm and the ability to
have four
completely functional fingers and a
thumb. Another good thing about our
technology is that, with the proper amount
materials
and
participation,
of
curing
paralysis can be as easy as getting a flu shot, or taking daily medicine, in the sense that you
would not have to undergo an entire operation to get a prosthetic installed. You could just
undergo quick surgery to get a better option. The operation might still be expensive, but less so
than getting amputated or a regular prosthetic, because it costs more to make an entire
mechanical arm then it does to make a set of microchips. This solution is also beneficial because
this is a permanent cure and not medicine or something that you would have to have remove, for
it would be a very painful process.
Specifications on our technology: where it will be installed, what it will be made of. Our
microchip will be installed in the motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement and
sensitivity, which is then in turn is located in the parietal lobe. We would insert the microchip
there because the part of the brain controls movement. Normally, the brain sends signals to the
body through neurons. The brain sends the neurons in a certain pattern so the receiving limb can
understand what to do. We will try to replicate it with the microchip in the limb having neurons
inside. The microchip in the brain will receive the neuronic pattern and transmit it into electric
signals which will then be transmitted back into neuronal signals in the second chip which the
limb will then receive. The microchips will be made of silicon, a hard but less chemically
reactive substance than steel.
With the right use of
our technology correctly, our idea will be a permanent solution to paralysis. It has many benefits
and is much easier to use than other forms of curing. Hopefully we can help all of the people out
there who need our technology.
Breakthroughs
Our invention is very helpful but as you know not everything is perfect, which means that
means our invention hasn’t been invented yet because there are still things needed to be
discovered in order to create our idea of fixing paralysis.
One of the reasons why our technology hasn’t been invented is because no one has
invented a way to transfer neurons into electric signals and back again. Microchips right now are
unable to receive signals from the brain, therefore they cannot activate neurons. Another factor
that needs to be considered is the actual transfer. Taking the neurons that the brain sends and
making them into electronic signals will be easy. However the transfer back to neurons will
prove more challenging. To make the neurons into electrical signals we can take an electronic
picture, translating it into the binary code of ones and zeros, and then send it wirelessly into the
other chip in the paralyzed limb. The hard part will be telling the neurons in the chip that has the
neurons inside it how to send out the neurons in the exact pattern so that the limb also knows
what to do.
Design Process
We first came up with our idea because we wanted to think of a new and inventive way to
cure paralysis. We also picked it because we realized that paralysis could affect a lot of people
and we wanted people with paralysis to live like everyone else without having to have a clumsier
replacement like a prosthetic.
We have had many ideas, this is one that we have had but discarded. We were going to
include the use of wires connecting the chips to each other, but realized that the wires were too
fragile to use, and could potentially damage the brain via an electronic shock and could possibly
damage it and that would make the problem worse. We also do not know how the electric wires
would react with the bloodstream if contact was made, and that could end badly.
Our final idea that we were going to use, but excluded was the use of shockwaves. We
knew it could be a good idea but we also knew that the shockwaves were not perfectly safe and
could damage the brain as well. The use of shockwaves could possibly “awaken” the nerves that
were no longer connected to the brain but could also possibly make the situation worse if the
nerves combusted because of the unusual shock and the limb became completely unreactive,
obviously making the situation worse.
Consequences
All technologies have their flaws, even our technology the C.H.I.P. have consequences.
Mostly having to do with cost, the other problems can vary from size to mechanics. We will
discuss these problematic factors in our profound original invention in our paper.
A positive consequence of our invention is that we will cure paralysis without the
negative consequences of a prosthetic. First and foremost, a prosthetic replaces the arm instead
of curing it. Our tech heals the arm so that it can regain use of the five fingers and elbows, where
some prosthetics only have 3 fingers or no elbow. Also, a prosthetic can be slow and clumsy,
almost so that people have trouble doing something as simple as getting a drink of water. Since
we actually regain the use of the arm, the function is not limited at all below its former
capabilities.
The negative consequence that we have seen is sheer numbers, of time and paralyzed
people. As you probably can guess, making the chip might take a long time. There are
approximately 5.5 million paralyzed people in the united states alone, and if we want to cure all
of them, it is going to take quite some time. For example, lets just say that one nanochip takes 50
minutes to make. if we want to cure 5.5 million people the equation will be 50 x 2 x 5,500,000
because every person needs two nanochips. if we were to do that the answer would be
550,000,000 minutes, equivalent to 917.7 hours, equivalent to 381,944.4 days, and that would be
if it was non stop creating of the chips. Assuming that each worker works 8 hours a day on these
chips non stop the equation would turn into 50 x 2 x 5,500,000 divided by 60 (1 hour) divided by
24 (hours in a day) times three (equivalent to the number divided by ⅓, and 8 hours is ⅓ of the
day). The final answer is 1,145,833.3 day spent working on this project, which is over 10,000
centuries in the U.S. alone.
Our invention has many problems, which lead to many consequences. Many dollars
would be spent on our project leading to an economic failure, and time could be a problem
because people would get the cure slowly and in the time that its would take to finish making all
of the chips for the people in the U.S. most of them would be dead. We hope that these will be
minor setbacks for what we believe to be a good cause.
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