Many products reach the end of their useful life when a predictable change occurs. A battery runs down, a child grows or a plant outgrows its pot. Amparo, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and POTR have designed products that respond to those changes through reshaping, energy generation or expansion.
Amparo has developed a prosthetic socket for child amputees that can be reheated and reshaped as the child’s limb grows. Conventional sockets require regular refitting or replacement, creating additional cost and disruption for families. Amparo’s design allows the same socket to be adjusted over time, making future growth part of the original design brief.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have prototyped a leadless pacemaker paired with a nanogenerator that converts the motion of a heartbeat into electricity. Conventional pacemaker batteries eventually require replacement, which can mean another medical procedure. The prototype explores whether an implanted device could generate enough power from the body to operate for much longer without battery replacement.
POTR has launched Helix, a self-watering pot that expands through Kresling origami folding as a plant grows from seed to maturity. Plant owners usually move a growing plant into progressively larger pots, which can disturb its roots and requires additional containers. Helix unfolds to create more space within the same product.
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Products engineered around the changes that usually trigger replacement. Amparo designs around physical growth, the University of Wisconsin-Madison around battery depletion and POTR around a plant’s expanding root system. In each case, the product responds using a mechanism already built into it.
The three innovations span medical devices, prosthetics and homeware. The design process starts with the event that normally forces replacement and considers whether the product could reshape, recharge or expand when that event arrives.