Welcome to the online home of the OpenBEI - The Bio-electronic Interface Project, which aims to develop a sustainable prosthetic hand system that is accessible and customisable.
Winner of The Royal Academy of Engineering Prize
at the National Science & Engineering Competition
Best Overall Project
of Engineering Education Scheme Scotland 2012
Thank you for your support for our project!
WHO ARE WE?
The project was started in 2012 by five students at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, Scotland, as part of the Engineering Education Scheme in Scotland, a national school science and technology competition. We were supported by the School of Engineering of the University of Edinburgh during the course of the project. (See About The Team)
WHAT DID WE DO?
We were given the task of developing a bio-electronic interface that can be used in conjunction with a robotic prosthetic hand. We developed a working prototype as part of the project, and presented it to a panel of leading individuals and scientists in the industry.
They chose our project as the best overall in Scotland, and our project then went on to win the Best CREST Gold Most Creative Project Award at Big Bang Scotland 2012. The project was taken down to London for the National Science and Engineering Competition at the Big Bang Fair 2013 in March, which required us to further develop our project and prototype. It subsequently won the Royal Academy of Engineering Prize. (see Accolades)
OpenBEI is a website built upon the spirit of open source. It contains all the related material published under this project for the unrestricted use of other prosthetic developers out there. (We only wish that you at least credit us in some way!). In the last year of our school career we began to realised that we will soon go our separate way, and the collaboration that created this project would soon end (sad face). We saw the potential in this project, and the need in the world for that cheap accessible, yet feature-packed prosthetic system... We won’t be able to solve the problem but we can at least help!
So there, maybe someday a project created by five secondary schoolboys may change the world of prosthesis? Call us ambitious :)
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
In the spirit of open source you are welcome to use the information you find on this website for your own research and development, whilst acknowledging our work and the work of those we have referenced. Take our look at our vision of the future.
Any problems with the website that you have spotted we would be grateful if you pop us an email about it: info@openbei.co.uk
Merchiston Senior Engineering Team 2011-2013
