This project was part of my BE118 Course – Design Thinking and Communications. As a freshman in college, I was unsure about the job of a biomedical engineer and had never used Computer-Aided-Design software before; it was definitely a learning curve. Looking back now, I have a lot more insight into biomedical engineering and the concentration I will pursue. For this project, I had to define the user and the potential stakeholders who would be considered for our design. From there, I formulated a problem statement: “Design a SolidWorks-generated, fracture fixation device for an 18-year-old high-school varsity soccer player that will allow safe/stable bone healing and comfort while they are moving.” The next step required sketching 10 different design ideas and writing down callouts. Here is a few of them:

With the bone measurements I had and the feedback I received from the teacher and my peers, I proceeded with designing the internal fracture fixation in SolidWorks and produced an engineering drawing of it. You can find both here:

At this point, there isn’t much left to do. I had to 3D print it and ensure it fit the plastic bone from which I took measurements to design the model. Here are the results:

As I’m reflecting on this project, I would say that the design was not necessarily difficult, but I ended up learning about SolidWorks tools I had never used before, such as creating reference geometry with planes to make angled holes. The most satisfying part was when I slid the nail into the intramedullary canal, and it fit perfectly. At first, when I got the 3D printed result, I wasn’t sure if it would fit because it looked slightly larger than expected. Seeing that it held the bone together made me extremely proud. If I were asked whether there are aspects of this project I could have executed more effectively, I would point to the addition of threads in the screw holes. At the time, I was not yet familiar with how that feature worked. Also the overall dimensions of the nail were also too small to make the threads clearly visible or practical at this scale. Would I make any changes to my design? Yes. I would have also spent more time designing the screws to gain more experience with SolidWorks and understand how they interact with the nail. I would also reduce the number of holes, keeping only the strategic ones, since that would slightly lower the manufacturing cost and reduce the risk of bone fragility if the screws ever had to be removed due to infection.