Five-year old South African, Liam, does not have fingers on his right hand since birth. He recently got a 3D prosthetic hand that has completely changed his life and he can grasp anything with the prosthetic including small items like coins. This amazing and low cost 3D prosthetic hand was specially designed for Liam by two manufacturers, who live thousands of miles away from each other. Richard Van As is in South Africa while his collaborator Ivan Owen, lives in Washington. Owen is a mechanical special effects artist, whereas Van As is a woodworker who lost four of his own fingers as a result of an accident while working in his workshop. Both of them worked together over the internet to build the hand for Liam. In addition to this they also wrote posts for their blog about the “robohand”. It is from this very blog that Liam’s mother found out about Owen and Van As’s work.
The two creators of the robotic hand met each other for the first time when Van As found out about the “hand-made prosthetic prop hand” for Owen that he had made for a convention. It is when Van As asked Owen for his help and a device in order to build a prosthesis for himself. After the initial meet the duo started working on their project as Van As sent “casts of his hand to Owen”, who then started building its models at his house. Shortly after that Van As commenced work on a Robohand for the five year old Liam and the two makers met to work together on a full prosthetic hand for the child.
In the meantime, people at Makerbot heard about Owne and Van As’s project and they decided to donate two of their ‘Replicate 2’ 3D printers to the duo with the help of which they created parts of the robohand by sending several CAD files to each other. Finally their effort bore fruit and Liam was able to receive a prototype of the robohand, but this did not stop the pair from improving the artificial hand.
As a result of that in the previous month Liam got an upgraded version of that hand with which he can now catch a baseball, pick up various things and do a lot more including tasks which were impossible for him to do earlier.
“Just 3 days after receiving his finished Robohand… Liam is off and learning to use it like a champion! A little guy who couldn’t grasp anything with his right hand can now even pick up an object as small and difficult as a coin!! Imagine how many other little folks are out there who could benefit from this technology!”
Now Owen and Van As are securing funds so more people like Liam, who cannot afford to spend $1000 or more charges to find a substitute of fingers, can take benefit from their technology.
Source: BusinessInsider, TechCrunch, ABCnews
Photo: ABCnews
Mind Is A Simple Meditation App That Uses Minimalist Design To Deliver A Great Experience
Survey Shows Business Executives are Comfortable Operating in Cloud but Face Issues
Lunches So Good Kids Can’t Ignore Them
Invigorating Ginger Smoothie
The U.K.’s Youngest Parents Ever
The new hair Jennifer Lawrence