There’s nothing fun about losing your limbs, except maybe the possibility that you’ll get a super awesome futuristic robotic arm like young amputee video gamer James Young did.
A photo posted by James Young (@jamesahyoung) on
Young, who reportedly lost his left arm and part of his leg from an accident involving a train ride during his daily commute, worked closely with prosthetics designers to create something truly unique.
Konami, a game maker, was reportedly looking for amputees for an experiment of their own, and when Young saw it, he immediately applied for it. Out of the 60 or so people who applied, Young was the lucky one who got chosen.
The experiment would change Young’s life forever; he had been given a prosthetic arm with a design you just don’t see every day. The new arm he has looks not only like something futuristic, but also like something right out of a video game.
And that was partially on purpose.
Konami’s ad involved making an amputee into Snake, a character from the company’s popular Metal Gear Solid video game. Part of that involved making a unique prosthetic arm that matched Snake’s appearance in the game.
And we’d say they probably hit the mark pretty well.
The arm, which would have costed about $90,000 to make if it hadn't been for Konami's collaboration, is controlled by electrical signals that are set off by Young’s nervous system. A special harness is built into the arm that collects those signals and powers the arm based off of young’s thought process.
Prosthetics that perform in this way aren’t totally perfect, but the technology is certainly advancing. Researchers even recently found a way to make liquid smooth movements possible with prosthetic arms based purely on thought by using a different part of the brain.
Young has an ongoing GoFundMe project that would pay for him to have the arm affixed to his bone permanently via titanium, rather than having a removable arm.
For Young, this is a life-changing experience that brings the world of gaming that he loves so much into the real world around him.
Source: BBC, Instagram