An explosion rattles the ground beneath you. A deafening roar vibrates the air particles around you. You fall. You can’t get up.

You are a professional dancer, and you have just lost your leg. What do you do now? Imagining such a tragedy is a nightmare, but for Adrianne Haslet-Davis, it was a reality. On April 15, 2013, two bombs detonated during the 117th Boston marathon, causing Haslet-Davis, a professional ballroom dancer, to lose her left leg and livelihood. In 3.5 seconds, terrorists stole her key to the dance world. However, she would’ve never thought that after only 200 days of research, her dance career would be back in full swing, all thanks to Hugh Herr, the leader of the biomechatronics group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Herr had endured a similar experience. After losing his legs during a hiking accident, Herr used it as inspiration to successfully create the world’s first bionic legs. Upon hearing about Haslet-Davis’ situation, Herr took on the challenge to make a bionic leg so responsive that it would propel Haslet-Davis back into the dance world. It wasn’t surprising that scientifically studying her passion was what gave Haslet-Davis back her key.

Every human has a right to basic movement. Still, often because of poor technology, many people suffer and have to cope without. Thankfully, because of the continual development of artificial limbs, restoring this right is in the near future. As Herr says, this new technology is “beginning to bridge the gap between disability and ability, between human limitation and human potential.” And these new bionics don’t rely on artisan strategies but rather data-driven quantitative frameworks. Implementing these frameworks in other areas of engineering can allow us to create shoes that don’t cause blisters, clothing that provides optimal support, and exoskeletons that make us stronger, faster, and more efficient.

So, how did Herr achieve this? Herr studied dancers in motion, noticing what forces they applied to the dance floor, and embedded this intelligence into the bionic limb. Through this process, Herr and his team discovered that “where the body is stiff, the synthetic skin should be soft, where the body is soft, the synthetic skin is stiff.” With this data-driven quantitative framework, Haslet-Davis could once again move with the ease of a normal leg and waltz back onto the dance floor.

However, bionics weren’t always this functional, comfortable, or responsive. Fifteen years prior, Ann Kornhauser, who had half of her foot amputated due to a rare tumor, was in constant pain because of the prosthetic foot she received. Since then, bionics have come a long way. Someday, we will all be wearing perfect-fitting outerwear and exoskeletons that protect our bodies in activities such as running. It will reach a point where, after we take off our bionic limbs, “our own biological legs will feel ridiculously heavy and awkward,” as Herr explains. However, until then, we’ll have to deal with shoes that cause blisters, itchy clothing, and the limitations of our own two feet.

Sources:

nytimes.com/2012/05/15/health/losing-more-to-gain-more-amputees-once-unthinkable-choice.html
ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_the_new_bionics_that_let_us_run_climb_and_dance#t-1117604
illumin.usc.edu/the-science-behind-the-perfect-pirouette-and-how-it-has-changed-the-world-of-prosthetics/