Oct. 9, 2014 | By Alec
E-Nable, perhaps the most noble and inspiring movement in the world's 3D printing community, has unveiled an exciting new online toolkit to help needy children throughout the world: the Hand-O-Matic.
For those of you who don't know, E-Nable is a wonderful collaboration of some 1600 volunteers all over the world (and their numbers continue to grow!) that design, print and customize 3D printed prosthetics for children and other needy people everywhere. They bring children and adults with missing limbs into contact with 3D printing enthusiasts who want to use their creativity and machinery to help others.
For thousands of people throughout the world, this has resulted in wonderful, functional, original and low-cost prosthetics that have been customized to suit them perfectly. Especially disabled children are benefiting from this, who are given original prosthetics that function as toys as well. Have you seen their cool 3D printed superhero prosthetic? They have something that makes other children jealous.
E-Nable has also recently held an event in Baltimore, where children, parents, physicians and 3D modellers came together to discuss developments and compare the latest designs. Also available – courtesy of 3DUniverse – where enough plastic kits for children to build 272 prosthetic hands on the spot.
This wonderful movement is supported by the team behind 3D printing community YouMagine, who have also masterminded the Ultimaker 3D printer. As founder Erik de Bruijn explained in a blog post, they have joined forced with e-Nable to deliver the next generation of model customization tools that will make designing prosthetics easier than ever before.
As he explained, 'now we're using collaborative online tools and desktop 3D to provide hands to people who need them. e-NABLE is about community, sharing, giving, collaboration, making, open source and 3D printing. It's the ultimate example of humanity enabled by powerful tools.'
The first major step they taken is the Hand-O-Matic tool, which makes generating a custom prosthetic hand easier than ever. This is how it works: simply go to their webpage at YouMagine, and then:
- Enter your measurements
- Select different models of hand, such as for people with no thumb
- Preview the parts
- Generate 3D printable STL files that get emailed to the email address provided
This way, you can design your very own 'Raptor Hand', the latest e-Nable design that combines the best elements from several other designs. 'Literally, the designers "joined hands" and made it better! Anyone can contribute and anyone can benefit.' You can also find the designs for the Raport Hand here, if you want to print a version yourself.
However, you're not quite done after generating these files. You will still need to generate a request to order manufacturing of your custom prosthetic and talk to a 3D printer who can make this for you, but e-Nable can help you with this. Just fill in this form.
De Bruijn noted that 'contributions come from across the globe and are available for use, study, modification and production anywhere. While global, 3D production can be as localised as the home of a prosthetic user on the family's 3D printer or a relative or someone neighbourhood who has one.'
And this wonderful online tool will surely enable e-Nable to reach more people than ever before with their life-changing services. Be sure to check it out!
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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The first hand off the hand-o-matic was hot pink! I have a blog post about that first build at http://mike.creuzer.com/2014/06/i-recently-printed-a-prosthetic-hand-for-a-little-girl-back-home-where-i-grew-up.html that may show some of the steps AFTER the hand-o-matic is used. The hand is an older version so it looks a bit different then what's available now.
Meche_03 wrote at 10/9/2014 3:40:56 PM:
I believe 3D Universe supplied about 30 hands. A majority were supplied by volunteers using their own 3d printers. Depending on the printer and hand size, it takes 8- 23 hours to print one hand kit. That's 1-3 man-years of time donated for one conference, just in 3d printed hand kits. And they were all printed in about 3 weeks if I recall correctly.
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