According to the 2000 United States census, 19% of the US population is struggling with a disability, 34.2 million people have functional limitations, and 2.2 million people use a wheelchair. In 2017, there were 15.99 million frequent kayakers in the United States. With the high rate of disability and the popularity of kayaking, this yields a market that is overlooked and untargeted; disabled athletes. In collaboration with Quality of Life Plus organization and wounded veteran David Snypse has led to the development of a prosthetic kayaking device to compensate for upper extremity complications. David, an avid kayaker, with a paralyzed left arm, has provided personal insight on the faults with current prosthetic paddle devices: (1) they break easily, (2) restrict normal kayak motion, and (3) are not designed for optimal efficiency or performance while paddling. Steady developments using biomechanics have been made to construct an aquatic kayaking device that will withstand up to 75 lbs of force in any given direction, will resemble an 80% overlap in average stroke profile of the paddle, and will grant an additional 50 newtons of kayaking thrust on top of user’s normal capability.
