The personalisation of healthcare devices has been a growing trend in the maker-sphere. From gold-plated hearing aids, neon walking sticks, and sparkling blade prosthetics to 3D printed arm casts, people with disabilities are no longer waiting for health services to catch up – they are dragging their medical devices into the future on their own.
Our 3D-printed prosthetic hand project has made the global finals of Intel’s Make it Wearable competition! Open Bionics came out of the Open Hand Project, where we developed a 3D printed robotic hand that would cost amputees less than $1,000.
Roboticists and doctors working in Switzerland and Italy have come together to develop a bionic hand that provides sensory feedback in real time, meaning that an amputee can be given back the ability to feel and modify grip like someone with a “real” hand. Using a combination of surgically implanted electrodes (connected at one end to the nervous system, and at the other end to sensors) and an algorithm to convert signals, the team has produced a hand that sends information back to the brain that is so detailed that the wearer could even tell the hardness of objects he was given to hold.
The Dextrus hand is a robotic hand that can be put together for well under £650 ($1000) and offers much of the functionality of a human hand. Existing prosthetic hands are magnificent devices, capable of providing a large amount of dexterity using a simple control system. The problem is that they cost somewhere between £7,000-£70,000 ($11,000-$110,000) — far too much for most people to afford, especially in developing countries. Through the Open Hand Project, an open source project with the goal of making robotic prosthetic hands more accessible to amputees, a fully-functional prototype has already been developed. An indiegogo campaign is currently underway to provide funds for refining and testing the design.
January 18, 2021
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