5th-Grader Tests 3-D Printed Robotic Arm to Help Other Kids
From: ECN Magazine - 12/22/2016

The soon-to-be 11-year-old left the Washington University School of Medicine
lab with an instruction manual for her new robotic arm. Don't get it wet.
Turn it off when not in use. Change the two 9-volt batteries.

But for a girl who has adapted to living a life with a left arm that ends
just past her elbow, there's no instruction manual for how to incorporate
this new technology into her day. That will be up to her to figure out.

And researchers at the biomaterials laboratory will be studying her, trying
to figure it out, too.

Delanie Gallagher of Spanish Lake is the first of 10 children researchers
plan to enroll in a study trying to determine how to develop a prosthetic
that is useful for children born with all or part of a limb missing, or who
lose a limb through trauma or surgery.

Most end up living without a prosthetic because it lacks function and only
gets in the way. Of the more than 540,000 Americans living with upper limb
amputations, only about 20 percent use a prosthetic.

Delanie's new arm incorporates myoelectric technology - sensors that detect
when muscles in the stump contract and signal parts in the prosthetic to
move. Prosthetics with this technology typically cost from $25,000 to
$50,000, making them unfeasible for fast-growing children.

Read the entire article at:
https://www.ecnmag.com/news/2016/12/5th-grader-tests-3-d-printed-robotic-arm-help-other-kids