Give the World a Helping Hand: 3D Prostheses

Key concepts:

• serendipity and innovation
• recycled plastic in 3D printing
• 3D printing of prostheses – DIY craft
• Youtube and the creation of community

The story of how Ivan Owen and his wife accidentally stumbled into building a global helping community deserves to be replicated in other domains. This is a positive example of how 3D printing using recycled plastic can make a huge contribution.

In 2011 Ivan Owen created a crazy metal functional puppet hand to wear to a steampunk convention. Afterwards, he posted a short video of it on Youtube.

That simple video clip changed his life and thousands of others – forever. First came an email from a carpenter named Richard from South Africa, who had lost his fingers in a woodworking accident, then a mother of a 5-year-old boy who was born with no fingers on his right hand.

The e-NABLE community is now a group of thousands of people, and growing, working continually to evolve the options for low-cost 3D printed prosthetic devices and evolved into the global volunteer e-NABLE community of makers volunteering their 3D printing skills to make hands.

e-NABLE now has chapters worldwide (see map) dedicated to “Give the World a Helping Hand” for all those missing hands who need them. A Google+ group created a map for hand makers to share their locations so that people who were seeking a hand could find the closest volunteer. 750 hands were gifted in the first year, 2000 the second. CBS Evening News published on Oct 28, 2013 the story of Paul and Leo McCarthy (father and son) who together made a DIY 3Dprinted plastic hand for Leo, who was born without fingers on one hand.

Prostheses can now be printed in “Bridge” nylon, an improved nylon from Taulman 3D, which has excellent strength properties, is heat and chemical resistant, and formulated to address the problems of printing with other nylon filaments.

e-NABLE now produces a $35 kit for anyone who wants to make a prosthetic hand. There is lots of diversity, including even artificial arms built with lego blocks.

Zann Gill for earthDECKS

See the app @ earthDECKS.org
Saving Our Oceans from Plastic: articles by Zann Gill

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• Aquaria – Informal Learning Network
• Beat the Microbead
• Bibliography: Plastic Roads
• Boyan Slat: Floater Technology for Ocean Cleanup
• Complex Systems Problems
• Cradle to Grave: Plastic Supply Chain
• Dame Ellen MacArthur: The Circular Economy
• Dr. Sylvia Earle: Learning for a Plastic World
• earthDECKS Limelights: Companies to Watch
• Enshrouded in Plastic
• Flamingos Signal the Future We Face
• Floating Trash: More than 4x as bad as we thought
• Global Ocean Sensing
• Industry Response to the Plastic Challenge
• Nature’s Innovators: plastic consumers
• Ocean Debris Network
• Ocean Ingenuity
• Oceans – Measuring Planet Health
• Plastic Bank – The Exchange Economy
• Plastic – Climate Change Connection: Israel & UBQ
• PLASTIC: Complex Systems Problem
• Plastic: Drinking Water, Table Salt & Mother’s Milk
• Plastic Footprint – Carbon Footprint
• Plastic-Eating Enzyme
• Plastic Gyres and Social Justice
• Plastic Impact Calculator
• Plastic Pollution Coalition: Campaign vs Single Use Plastic
• Plastic & Public Health: Endocrine Disruptors
• PLASTIC: Overview of National Leadership
• Plastic Roads – Global Innovation Ecosystem
• Plastic – The Circular Economy
• The Plasticene
• Plastiki: adventure stories & a big message
• Raising Awareness of Plastic Hazards