Peter Cestrone

10/3/2015
UWRT-1102

Inquiry Proposal
Biomedical engineering is defined as a way to improve human health by integrating
engineering techniques with knowledge of biology and medicine. It has improved peoples
quality of life by designing and innovating new ways to advance the medical field. One example
of a biomedical engineering is three-dimensional printing. It can be done in a variety of ways,
each of which beings with a computer aided design or CAD for short. After the design is
complete it is uploaded to a 3-D printer. Once the design has been received by the printer the
machine begins printing the design. The printer uses melted materials to create the design in
multiple layers. Once the layers are compiled in a specific sequence the design can be completed.
Using this technique there have been advancements in the medical field. One such advancements
is printing prosthetics. A prosthetics is an artificial body part or organ used to help people
without it to function normally. The medical field is changing everyday with the introduction of
new advancements. Advancements are crucial when it comes to medicine because the population
keeps growing and it becomes more difficult to treat every disablement within the endlessly
growing population. An example of how the growing population causes difficulty for the medical
field is that birth rates keep getting higher, which increases the chances of children being born
without limbs. As a result prosthetics are becoming increasingly demanded. My question to
inquire into this community is, how is 3-D printing prosthetics affecting the medical field?

After researching how biomedical engineering has impacted the world I found that one of
the most promising things being developed are prosthetics. My research has only consisted of

online sources so far, but doing this research has lead me to an actual question that has some
interest to me. I am personally majoring in mechanical engineering with a focus in biomedical
engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Naturally biomedical advancements
and problems interest me. First let me give you a little background of what Biomedical Engineers
actual do. A Biomedical Engineer designs and occasionally creates replacement body parts
artificially such as, limbs and organs, and also designs machines that aid in diagnosing medical
conditions. For example the MRI machine or an EKG. The impacts of these designs are what
drives me to inquire into this field.

To inquire into the biomedical engineering field further research must be completed
before I can move on. This means that I will have to continuously think about my question and
keep researching related topics both online and written down. To do this I plan on spending time
online and in the UNCC library. My plan for research online is to go online for at least 30
minutes a day and find no less than one new reliable source that is relevant to my question and
that can be of assistance in answering it. For the library I plan on going once a week spending at
least an hour going through books and other related texts to find reliable sources for an in depth
answer to my question.

In conclusion the discourse community I have chosen is the biomedical engineering

community. This is because it is of the most interest to me. After research a little into this
community I have come up with an inquiry question of, how is 3-D printing prosthetics affecting
the medical field? My research up to this point was strictly online, however; for my future
research I plan on using online resources and academic books as resources to find an answer to

my question. Through the research process I will find out exactly what the affect 3-D printing is
having on the medical field.