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DesignNewswire · COMO, Italy ·

Golden A' Design Award in Cybernetics, Prosthesis and Implant Design Goes to Jizai Arms Supernumerary Robotic Limb System by Team Jizai Arms

Team Jizai Arms recognized for cybernetics, prosthesis and implant design by the international grand jury of the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 20, 2023 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Jizai Arms Supernumerary Robotic Limb System by Team Jizai Arms, designed for The University of Tokyo, has been granted the Golden A' Design Award in the Cybernetics, Prosthesis and Implant Design category. The award was conferred within the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

The Golden A' Design Award Explained

The Gold A' Design Award is granted to designs that demonstrate a high level of innovation and a significant impact on their intended audience. Recognized as a major achievement by the A' Design Awards, these designs are characterized by their visionary approach and the exceptional skill of their creators. Winners of the Gold A' Design Award are noted for their ability to push the envelope in art, science, design, and technology, delivering solutions that not only meet but exceed expectations. These designs serve as benchmarks for excellence, encouraging further innovation and inspiring future generations of designers.

About Jizai Arms Supernumerary Robotic Limb System

Jizai Arms is a supernumerary robotic limb system worn on the body. The system consists of a wearable base unit with six terminals and detachable robotic arms, each with five degrees of freedom. The arms can be attached and removed quickly, so wearers can exchange arms with one another. Exterior parts are produced by three-dimensional printing, which allows complex shapes and reduces weight. The arms are operated through a half scale model moved by hand, and the posture of the model is applied directly to the robotic arms.

Award Record

With this recognition, Team Jizai Arms is a winner of 1 A' Design Award.

About the A' Cybernetics, Prosthesis and Implant Design Award

The A' Cybernetics Design Award is an international competition recognizing good design in cybernetics industry by leading designers and brands worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to cybernetics designers, prosthesis designers, implant designers and bio-engineers from all countries. Typical entries include bionic limbs, neural implants, cochlear implants, retinal prosthetics, robotic prosthetics and artificial organs. The awarded cybernetics designs are published at https://desingers.org/design-category/cybernetics

About A' Design Award & Competition

Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

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Fact Sheet

The Work

Project
Jizai Arms Supernumerary Robotic Limb System
Function
Supernumerary Robotic Limb System
Category
Cybernetics, Prosthesis and Implant Design
Discipline
Industrial Design
Industry
Health, Accessibility and Innovation
Colors
Black, Light Gray, Silver, Dark Gray and Dim Gray
Images
5
Client
The University of Tokyo

The Recognition

Laureate
Team Jizai Arms
Country
Japan
Recognition
Golden A' Design Award
Edition
2022 - 2023
Design ID
#148712

Credits

Team
Nahoko Yamamura, Daisuke Uriu, Mitsuru Muramatsu, Yusuke Kamiyama, Shin Sakamoto, Shunji Yamanaka and Masahiko Inami

Design Details

Unique Properties
JIZAI ARMS is a supernumerary robotic limb system. It was designed to enable social interaction between multiple JIZAI ARMS wearers such as an exchange of arms.JIZAI ARMS is a supernumerary robotic limb system consisting of a wearable base unit with detachable robotic arms. The system has been designed to enable social interaction between multiple wearers, such as exchanging arms, and to explore possible interactions between digital cyborgs in a cyborg society.
Inspiration
In “One Arm”, Nobel Prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata wrote a weird scene that a girl gives her arm to a man and a man stay a night with it. He vividly described a man’s experience at the night with his wide-ranging emotional changing. After a half a century, emerging human-machine integration technologies have begun to allow us to physically experience Kawabata’s world. “JIZAI ARMS” are designed to explore possible interactions between digital cyborgs in a cyborg society.
Research
JIZAI ARMS is a prototype to explore possible social interactions between digital cyborgs in a cyborg society, such as gifting body parts or exchanging arms. In existing research in human augmentation, interesting changes of embodiment happened through using wearable robotics has reported. We focused not only individual wearer but also embodied experience happen between multiple digital cyborgs, and made JIZAI ARMS as a prototype to make such experiences real.
Challenge
Enabling quick and free attach/detach of arms is a core concept of JIZAI ARMS and system design for this feature was one of a hard point. Production team invented connection system enables easy attach/detach and connect both electrically and physically, but stiff enough as a base of robotic arms. From styling perspective, achieving a beautiful fusion of human body and machine was a challenging point. We designed this robotic system rationally but tried designing it visually fit to human body.
Realization and Technology
This system contains a wearable base unit which has six terminal to attach arms and board to communication, and robotic arms with 5 DOF. Exterior parts are designed with organic and complex shape to cover only necessory part and make it lighter, 3D printing enabled these complex shape. We designers worked from considering basic engineering specification like motor layout and geometry of arms, to finalize exterior design. This process made sophisticated design.
Operation and Interaction
JIZAI ARMS is a system contains wearable base unit and detachable robotic arms. Robotic arms which connected to base unit are controlled by computer. In current prototype, robotic arms are controlled using a 1/2 scale model as a controller, operator can control arms with moving a model like puppet. Using this controller, operator controll robotic arms intuitively since a posture which operators made with model is directly applied to actual robotic arms.
Project Duration and Location
The project started in Nov 2021 in part of JST INAMI JIZAI BODY PROJECT and completed production in September 2022. JIZAI ARMS has firstly used and shown in dance performances in JIZAI Collection held at Tokyo in Novenber 2022.
Specifications
Width 900mm x Depth 400mm x Height 1000mm *A system contains attachable/detachable robotic limb and wearable base unit, dimensions changes up to layout and posture of arms.
Keywords
Cyborg, Digital Cyborg, Social Digital Cyborg, Supernumerary Robotic Limb System, Robotic Limbs, Wearable Robotic Limbs, Human-Machine Integration, Human-Computer Integration, Robotics, Human-Robot Integration

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