The feature
An Xconomy article dated 10 June 2013 opened on Gary Walters cutting grass in the heat of a San Antonio summer. It described him as an Iraq-war veteran with a below-knee prosthesis, and said the idea for a cooling system came to him then.
The problem in his words
He told the writer the socket could feel like leaving a hand soaked for hours, leaving skin that breaks down and develops blisters, rash and open sores. The heat built up even when he was sitting indoors. He recalled repeatedly asking doctors and prosthetic makers why nobody had found a fix.
From assignment to prototype
That winter, his frustration met a design assignment in an engineering course at his university in San Antonio. What came out was the Aquilonix concept: a ceramic plate with battery-driven thermoelectric parts that draw warmth out of the socket and release it outside. It is built into the socket and switched on and off.
The article also covered the team’s $100,000 contest win. This is a summary of the archived piece. See the product description.