Richard and the Robohand team are doing extraordinary work to promote the use of 3D printers to produce cheaper and more accessible prosthetics. Their hand prosthetics, most ideally suited for those who have amniotic band syndrome, is produced in 20-30 minutes from a file they produced themselves. The prosthetic itself is extremely simple, mechanical (thus not depended on myoelectrical sensors), and supplies amazing functions to the users (move ahead to see Dylan catch a ball thrown by his father).
It is made by the Makerbot Replicator 2 3D printer, they have only added cabling and standard hardware. It works with the user’s wrist movement, and new models can be printed out once the user has outgrown the previous one.
The most amazing part of this work? It is openly accessible. Get access to a 3D printer, and use the file they have put up to print it out, and put it together.
You can support the Robohand team here.
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