'Robohand' Made Via 3D Printing Makes Replacing Lost Digits More Affordable
From: Huffingtopn Post - 09/09/2013
By: Carley Petesch

Richard Van As, a South African carpenter, lost four fingers from his right
hand to a circular saw two years ago.

He was unable to afford the tens of thousands of dollars to get a myoelectric
hand, which detects a muscle's electric impulses to activate an artificial
limb.

"After my accident, I was in pain, but wouldn't take painkillers. I barely
slept, and the more pain I had the more ideas I got," he told The Associated
Press. "Sometimes you have to chop fingers off to start thinking."

He decided to build his own hand. After seeing a video posted online of a
mechanical hand made for a costume in a theater production, he reached out to
its designer, Ivan Owen, in Seattle.

Enter Robohand - a device that Van As and Owen invented that is made from
cables, screws, 3-D printing and thermoplastic. It uses the rotation of a
joint to enable five plastic digits to grasp. The device looks like a robot's
hand in a science fiction movie, costs about $500 to make and can be
reproduced using plans on the Internet and a 3-D printer.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/robohand-3d-printing_n_3895589.html

Links:
Robohand
http://robohand.net

Sustaining Robohand (video 10:12)
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sustaining-robohand

Complete set of mechanical anatomically driven fingers
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:44150

Robohand on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robohand/260864887366912

Liam, 5-Year-Old From South Africa, Gets Mechanical 'Robohand' Because of
  the Kindness of 2 Strangers (video 0:55) 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/liam-robohand_n_2627347.html

Robohand uses 3D printing to replace lost digits
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/09/robohand-uses-3d-printing-to-replace-lost-digits/2786811/
http://techland.time.com/2013/09/09/robohand-uses-3d-printing-to-replace-lost-digits/
http://news.yahoo.com/robohand-uses-3d-printing-replace-lost-digits-155740418.html
http://www.pddnet.com/news/2013/09/robohand-uses-3d-printing-replace-lost-digits

3-D Printer Brings Dexterity to Children with No Fingers
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/06/18/191279201/3-d-printer-brings-dexterity-to-children-with-no-fingers

3D printing creates low-cost prosthetic fingers
http://machinedesign.com/3d-printing/3d-printing-creates-low-cost-prosthetic-fingers

Robohand Provides 3D-Printed Prosthetic Hands and Fingers (video 1:05)
http://mashable.com/2013/05/14/makerbot-robohand-3d-printed-hand/

Robohand: How cheap 3D printers built a replacement hand for a five-year
old boy
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/robohand-how-cheap-3d-printers-built-a-replacement-hand-for-a-five-year-old-boy/

3D Printed Robohand 
http://www.pddnet.com/news/2013/09/photos-day-3d-printed-robohand

Collaborative 3D Printing Project Connects Hands across the World
http://www.medicaldesignbriefs.com/component/content/article/17487

Submitted by Richard Jaffe