Non-Surgical Cochlear Implant

thingiverse

This new earpiece is designed for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and do not wish to attain a surgical cochlear implant. Although it has the same parts as the cochlear implant, it is much smaller yet works better than the implant. The transmitter and receiver/stimulator gets attached to the back of the ear, on the earpiece, and the microphone and speech processor are on the part of the piece that comes around the pinna, or the top of the ear. This is continued down to the middle and inside of the ear and extends just about to the ear drum, where it sends information signals that bounce off the ear drum to the cochlea. (Even if the ear drum has a hole in it that prevents regular sound to bounce off of it, the non-surgical cochlear implant can still send information through to the cochlea properly). From here, the signal enters the hearing nerve so it can be received by the brain. This is a prototype but the actual piece that would be made would have to be inserted into the ear my a professional doctor. The wire that goes around the top of the ear and attaches to the microphone and speech processor, is flexible so it can adjust to anyone's ear. Also this wire can be printed using a flexible materials rather than plastic, some parts cannot be printed. These parts include an arduino chip programmed specifically to ensure the smooth operation of this device. The arduino chip would recieve, transmit and stimulate the sounds coming in through the microphone (wires connecting the arduino and microphone will also be required if everything is bought seperately). The microphone is also another piece that will not be printed, however all of these non-printed parts will fit perfectly into the 3D printed design. In total, the arduino chip and microphone would cost about $100-$150 depending on where you are purchasing it from. Instructions To create this, I first researched the different parts of the ear and how it worked, and then i researched the surgical cochlear implant. I came up with a couple different designs that would ensure no surgery was required for this piece and started to create my design on Auto-Cad. To create the twisted wire, I drew a circle of the radius that I wanted my wire to be and then I used the spline tool from the centre of the circle, following the path I wanted the wire to go (this is all done in the 3D Modeling view). I then used the sweep tool (which can be found on the drop-down menu of the Extrude tool), and followed the circle to the path that I had created.