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Medicine Build

3-D Printed "Iron Man" Prosthetic Hands Now Available For Kids 64

Posted by timothy from the in-time-for-hallowe'en-even dept.
PC World (drawing on an article from 3DPrint.com) notes that inventor Pat Starace has released his plans for a 3-D printable prosthetic hand designed to appeal both to kids who need it and their parents (who can't all afford the cost of conventional prostheses). The hand "has the familiar gold-and-crimson color scheme favored by Ol' Shellhead, and it's designed with housings for a working gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer, and other "cool sensors", as well as a battery housing and room for a low-power Bluetooth chip and charging port." It takes about 48 hours in printing time (and "a lot" of support material), but the result is inexpensive and functional.
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3-D Printed "Iron Man" Prosthetic Hands Now Available For Kids More

3-D Printed "Iron Man" Prosthetic Hands Now Available For Kids

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  • Intellectual Property (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Do you think Disney would be willing to sue over the design? Or did they approve of the color scheme and name being used?

    • This is Disney we're talking about, they won't sue... not yet... first comes the waves of C&D letters and thinly veiled threats.

  • biocompatibility (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    How poisonous are the 3-D printed plastics? There's a huge difference between approved medical devices and shit that you build in your basement.

    • Re:biocompatibility (Score:5, Informative)

      by Thantik ( 1207112 ) on Sunday October 19, 2014 @11:45PM (#48183855)
      Disclaimer: I'm good friends with the guy who designed this hand. But either way, the hand is made out of PLA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org] - Which we just so happen to use for drinking cups, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say "not poisonous at all".

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      Here we go. Please do tell us about how the "official" prosthetic costing $40,000 are totally not a ripoff even though they can be replaced by $45 printed prostetics because each one is hand carved by highly skilled gnomes from their own bones and tied together with unicorn hair and anything else will kill the wearer in the first 5 minutes.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Sarten-X ( 1102295 )

        So can you tell me what the long-term effects of wearing this $45 printed device are?

        Is it weighted such that it pulls muscles awkwardly, causing pain after a few months of continuous use? Does the constant contact with skin cause any nerve damage? If worn during physical activity, does it create an additional risk of shattering or otherwise injuring the wearer or others?

        Can you show test results indicating otherwise, even when the user may not have it attached properly? What resources are available so the

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Here's the thing. Every one of these that I have seen has been custom fitted and designed around the wearer.

          Can you tell me that every human, adult or child, would have one of those medically approved prosthetic devices?

          How about users who have the $40,000 devices, who PREFER the 3d printed hands? They fit better and allow for more actions than the expensive devices.

          If someone else prints it out of material FDA approved for implantation, would that make you happy?

          Is there any way in which you can argue tha

        • Re:biocompatibility (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sjames ( 1099 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @01:14AM (#48184119) Homepage Journal

          I can tell you nobody has ever thought it was all that important with gloves and watchbands and we don't have a small army of people who were nerve damaged by their casio. I can tell you that if it costs $40,000 and you don't have that kind of cash laying around, it might as well not exist at all. Are you claiming people are better off with nothing? Are you willing to say that to their faces? Sorry, you're not rich enough to have a hand?

          Or consider canes. If a cane is used improperly, it can cause back shoulder and arm pain. Should we make canes cost $40,000 or should we just adjust them differently if things start hurting?

          Imagine the disaster it would be for the economy if we all had to wear only medically approved clothes complete with $40,000 belts and $100,000 shoes. But OMG, what if the belt fails and their pants fall and cause them to trip and trigger a nuclear meltdown, millions of lives are at stake here! $100,000 is such a small price to pay in order to safely not go naked in public!

          I imagine the kid will do what the rest of us do. If the hand starts causing pain he'll use it less until it can be adjusted. Meanwhile, unlike before, he has a functional prosthetic hand.

          I'll bet that the $500 beater is infinitely more useful than a Ferrari to someone who will never be able to afford a Ferrari.

          In other words, that looks like about $39,955 worth of FUD (and unicorn hair). Most people really can't afford that much FUD. Thankfully, I'm not in the market for a prosthetic hand, but if I was, I would at least try the $45 one first.

          • I think that the $40K price here is based on Demand, and Supply. 3D Printing definitly increases the supply, and the Craftsman ship is transfered to learning Blender3D. But how does one measure an appendage to start designing 3D Printed Hand with partial Arm assembly?

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              The $40k difference is due to the fact that Medicare / Medicaid / Insurance are willing to pay that price for an 'FDA approved' hand. So why should the company sell it for any less?

          • I can tell you nobody has ever thought it was all that important with gloves and watchbands and we don't have a small army of people who were nerve damaged by their casio.

            And I can tell you that nerve damage (especially around the fingertips) is important to glove manufacturers, especially concerning sporting gloves, where the risk of such damage is high with or without gloves.

            As for watchbands, I actually do know a few people who've had allergic reactions to watchbands of various kinds, starting with myself. I can't wear a gold watch, because after a few hours my wrist turns red, and after an evening of wearing it my lower arm is covered in small red bumps. I have a lesser

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sjames ( 1099 )

              And I can tell you that nerve damage (especially around the fingertips) is important to glove manufacturers, especially concerning sporting gloves, where the risk of such damage is high with or without gloves.

              And yet, they manage to make functional sporting gloves without a 100,000% mark-up over the cost of a DIY version. The people working with the affordable prosthetics are also interested in not causing harm. They (and sporting glove manufacturers) just have a proper sense of proportion about it and a better understanding of the actual risks.

              As for watchbands, I actually do know a few people who've had allergic reactions to watchbands of various kinds, starting with myself.

              OMG, terminal wrist irritation. How long do you have? Oh, just changed watchbands and all's well? That sounds much smarter than getting a $10,000 FDA approved watchband.

              That's what insurance is for.

              T

        • I really don't understand your questions, but I have one myself, "Are you the assistant to your local Village Idiot?"
          • No, but in a previous job I did assist clinical researchers doing this kind of testing. The examples I gave are pretty easy questions to test for. The hard one is usually "Does this product increase the risk of cancer?"
            • Then I withdraw my "comment" and respectfully submit a request for actuall evidence that supports your medical claims. I think any medical facts you bring to this discussion would be very useful.

      • Please do tell us about how the "official" prosthetic costing $40,000 are totally not a ripoff even though they can be replaced by $45 printed prostetics because each one is hand carved by highly skilled gnomes from their own bones and tied together with unicorn hair and anything else will kill the wearer in the first 5 minutes

        I can't.

        Because I don't have the money or resources to clinically evaluate a $45 prosthetic hand.

        This I do know:

        The poor have been milked for generations by frauds and fools marketing medical miracles at dime store prices. When the geek sees a buzz word like "3-D Printing" in a headline, his capacity for critical thinking goes south.

        To test his computer models of neural control, Valero-Cuevas is using a very faithful physical system: cadaver hands. Hand surgeons help him connect the hands' tendons to strings driven by electric motors.

        The activity of the motors is controlled by the neuron software, as if the motors were muscles themselves. This way the simulated neurons are confronted with the same problem the nervous system faces: controlling the hand as a marionette driven by complex muscles and tendons.

        The goal is for the software and hardware to work in concert to control the cadaver hand the same way a healthy person can move his or her hand --- complete with stretch reflexes, muscle tone and compliance.

        ''We are studying the very fundamental mechanisms of how muscles have tone and how you modify that to get function, and how their disruptions lead to the pathological characteristics of hypertonia, spasticity and dystonia, which are very common in cerebral palsy, stroke and spinal cord injury,'' Valero Cuevas said. ''But we don't really know where they come from, and we're trying to understand that.''

        The complexity in just one little finger

        Each finger tendon is controlled by between six and 10 muscles, and in turn, each simulated muscle is controlled by a population of 256 independent neurons.

        ''The irony is not lost on us that we're combining one of the oldest scientific disciplines, hand anatomy, with some of the newest elements of ultra-fast parallel computing,'' Valero-Cuevas said. ''We're using this to answer central questions about evolution, health and disease, and how all these systems work.''

        One application of this work is the design of better prosthetic hands, where there is still a major engineering challenge to make artificial hands that can be effective manipulators of objects. The most advanced current prosthetics are effective grippers, but the ultimate goal is truly dexterous manipulators.

        ''We see it as an impasse,'' Valero-Cuevas said. ''Over a century of trying to develop something that's better than the split hook prosthesis. We now have modern robotic hands and prosthetic hands that are amazing grippers, but they're not dexterous manipulators. They're great at holding things, but is it the Luke Skywalker hand that would be able to pick something up, reorient and operate it? Think of all the operations that are needed to use your smartphone with one hand.''

        Perfecting a fully functioning prosthetic hand [usc.edu]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          In this case, he must be really bad at milking since it was given free of charge.

          I really have no idea what your quote has to do with anything, that tech is pure unobtanium, even at $40,000. The $40,000 model is nothing like that.

          It's good that the work is being done, but it's not ready yet.

  • " ... (who can't all afford the cost of conventional prostheses) ..."

    USA - the only supposed first-world country where children have to be able to afford a prostheses.
    Creepy. ... Or actually f*cking outrageous if you think about it for a minute.

    • Your right if I were European I would be outraged. A good portion of my earned money is being wasted on expensive equipment that the child will outgrow in a couple years.
      Prosthetics are better spent for adults, as they can be kept longer, and they are mature enough to care for them. For kids the money should go to therapy to work around their issues.
      I know people with stunted hands who have flawless penmanship and are able to prefrom most tasks inspite of their disability because they have been trained at

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tobe ( 62758 )

      +1 from this Brit.

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