Articulation: A new innovation to Clip Appliers for use in minimally invasive surgery

The purpose of this project is to design the distal end of Covidien's minimally invasive surgery tool, the Articulating Clip Applier. The major constraints on this design are the angles of articulation and roticulation, the storage of clips in the device and the size of the device. Articulation should range from 0 to 60 degrees and roticulation will preferably be 360 degrees. The device should store at least 6 medium/large clips, although 10 clips is the preferred amount. The distal end of the applier is suggested to be 2.5 inches maximum, with a diameter of 10 millimeters maximum. The finished product must be able to fire clips, but designing the handle of the tool is neither required nor suggested. A team of four engineering students will conduct the project, with the guidance of Jason Iceman, a R&D Engineer at Covidien and Erik Carlson, a R&D intern at Covidien.