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Description
e-NABLE: 3D-Printing Helping Hands for the Global Village
Jon Schull, Research Scientist, MAGIC (Media, Arts, Games,
Interaction and Creativity) Center at Rochester Institute of Technology
The 3-D Mechanical Hand Maker Movement was inspired by two strangers (a prop maker from the U.S. and a carpenter from South Africa) who came together from 10,000 miles apart to create a prosthetic hand device for a small child in South Africa and then gave the plans away for free so that those in need of the device could make them for themselves or have someone make it for them. What originally started out as a couple of guys creating something to help one child in need has grown into a world wide movement of tinkerers, engineers, 3-D print enthusiasts, occupational therapists, university professors, designers, parents, families, artists, students, teachers, and people who just want to make a difference.
A
A
A
This
is
the
original
robohand
one
point:
oh
I,
and
a
mere
19
months
ago,
600
days
ago,
actually
I
came
across
a
YouTube
video,
in
which
mr.
van
has
told
his
story
and
mentioned
that
he
had
come
to
understand
that
his
solution
could
help.
Maybe
one
in
2,000
children
who
were
born
with
some
kind
of
an
upper
limb
abnormality
and
he
was
putting
this
design
on
the
internet
and
he
was
trying
to
raise
some
money
in
order
to
making
these
for
kids
well.
A
But
when
I
heard
this
twice,
I
raised
my
hand.
I
said
you
know
that
if
you've
got
one
guy
who
needs
a
custom
prosthetic
that
these
engineers
were
able
to
produce
they're.
Probably
another
hundred
thousand
people
around
the
world
who
could
use
that
same
device
and
the
response
in
both
cases
was
that's.
Probably
true.
But
that's
not
our
problem,
we're
not
doing
anything
about
that.
A
I
immediately
had
a
grandiose,
multi,
University,
multidisciplinary
multi
multi
plan
for
a
21st
century,
assistive
technology,
design,
fabrication
and
dissemination
network,
which
I
imagine
would
be
funded
by,
of
course,
every
agency
which
would
want
to
get
behind
this
kind
of
thing
and
ultimately
funded
by
licensing
of
newly
developed
designs
to
prosthetic
companies.
But
as
any
of
you,
academics
may
know
getting
universities
to
agree
with
each
other
and
getting
universities
to
agree
with
themselves
is
virtually
impossible
and
I
spent
two
months
working
on
this
and
I
gave
up.
A
But
when
I
saw
this
youtube
video
600
days
ago,
I
spent
20
minutes
and
I
made
a
google
map
mashup,
and
I
took
inspiration
from
a
strange
place.
I
don't
know
about
you
but
youtube.
Video
comments
are
the
most
demoralizing
genre
right
in
the
history
of
literature
right
and
yet
there
were
two
here
attached
to
this
video.
That
said
what
this
guys
doing
is
cool.
I
would
do
that.
A
I
have
a
3d
printer
and
so
I
put
this
message
on
the
YouTube
video
and,
as
it
went
viral
around
the
world
old
people
started
adding
themselves
to
the
map.
Now
here's
the
basic
idea.
This
is
one
of
our
newer
designs.
The
idea
was
that
people
would
be
able
to
download
it
from
safe
Thingiverse
and
what
they
would
get
is
a
3d
model.
In
this
case
of
an
arm
design
that
we've
developed
in
my
lab,
they
would
be
able
to
customize
it.
A
We
thought
for
individual
users
in
a
mass
customization
process,
and
then
they
could
put
them
on
3d
printer
software,
which
would
be
cropping
up
all
over
the
world
and
could
arrange
for
it
to
print
and
if
any
of
you
haven't
got
it
yet
a
3d
printer
of
the
sort
that
you
can
now
get
for.
One
to
two
thousand
dollars
is
basically
a
glue
gun
on
a
robotic
arm.
A
It
lays
down
a
thin
thread
of
plastic
layer
by
layer
by
layer
stroke
by
stroke
by
stroke,
and
then
you
get
all
of
these
parts
and
then
and
you'll
notice.
We
have
nuts
and
bolts
in
this
model,
but
not
in
the
newer
model.
You
get
a
mechanical
hand
that
is
actuated
just
by
pulling
some
strings,
which
you
can
then
give
to
a
young
man
who
can
do
some
things
that
we
take
for
granted
like
pick
up
a
fork
or
pick
up
a
class.
A
Do
a
few
other
things
and
feel
a
heck
of
a
lot
better
about
things
than
he
did
before.
This
is
happening
right
now,
all
over
the
world
and,
as
you
can
see
here,
it's
substantially
better
than
nothing
now
in
slow-mo,
you
may
notice
that
in
this
case,
what
he's
doing
is
he's
straightening
his
arm
a
little
bit
to
let
the
arm
release
and
then
he
can
do
it.
I
true
to
form
left
my
mechanical
demo
hand
up
in
my
room,
but
I'll
get
it
right
after
the
talk.
A
If
anyone
wants
to
lay
hands
on
the
hand,
but
the
basic
principle,
if
it's
not
clear,
is
that
there
are
two
parts.
Typically,
we
have
a
gauntlet
assuming
you
have
a
wrist
and
we
have
a
palm
and
they're
connected
by
these
strings,
and
so
when
you
bend
your
wrist,
the
strings
titan
on
the
underside
of
the
fema
fingers
and
you
make
a
fist.
If
you
can
bend
your
wrist,
you
can
make
a
fist,
it's
that
simple
and
for
the
kids
it's
that
attractive.
A
Now
that
was
sort
of
the
vision,
and
you
know
there
are
two
miracles
in
this
story.
One
is
how
true
things
have
been
to
the
original
vision
and
the
other
is
how
far
off
the
original
vision
was.
This
part
held
up
I
described
it
on
day,
one
as
a
global
volunteer,
assistive
technology
network
built
on
an
infrastructure
of
electronic
communications,
3d,
printing
and
goodwill.
A
So
as
you
can
see,
the
map
has
filled
out
considerably
and
we
have
grown
by
a
few
percent
per
week
from
day
one
so
that
yesterday
we
cross
the
three
thousand
member
mark
and,
at
this
rate,
we're
going
to
double
in
some
reasonable
amount
of
time
and
I
want
to
tell
you
the
story
about
this
organization
now
by
the
way.
Actually,
can
you
just
turn
off
the
sound
I
meant
to
tell
you
ask
you
to
do
that?
A
One
of
the
reasons
we've
grown
this
rapidly
is
that
last
April
there
was
a
piece
on
Fox
TV
news
in
which
this
recipient
of
one
of
our
hands
evaluated
our
hand
versus
his
own,
which
was
indeed
a
forty-two
thousand
dollar
prosthetic
you'll
notice,
I'm,
really
trying
to
back
backpedal
the
the
rhetoric
of
the
42
thousand
dollar
prosthetic.
He
should
have
been
prescribed
or
at
any
rate
in
the
last
few
years,
it
was
possible
for
him
to
be
prescribed
a
ten-thousand-dollar
prosthetic.
Nonetheless,
he
paid
forty
two
thousand
dollars
for
it.
He
reports
that
is
really
fancy.
A
It's
got
a
computer
and
when
he
presses
one
button,
the
fingers
will
open
close
this
way
and
it
presses
another
button.
The
fingers
will
open
this
way,
but
he
liked
ours
better
and,
as
this
story
went
around
more
and
more
people
signed
up
to
our
Google+
community,
which
is
where
those
counts
come
from.
A
Whatever
we
did,
it
attracted
an
extraordinary
community
of
people
who
are
very
talented
in
many
ways
who
are
very
diverse.
Some
of
our
best
work
has
been
done
by
high
school
students
and
by
accountants,
who
have
suddenly
fallen
in
love
with
3d
printers
and
are
now
doing
experiments
with
goo
goo
and
silicone
paste
and
doing
all
sorts
of
things
and.
A
The
Google+
community
has
spawned
a
Facebook
group
and
a
web
page,
which
is
the
way
those
two
channels
most
of
the
parents
who
want
hands,
find
their
way
to
us.
There's
even
now,
a
Facebook
page
for
the
families.
Who've
got
these
hands
where
they're
comparing
notes
and
providing
us
with
guidance
for
what
they
would
like
to
see
in
the
future,
and
the
Google+
community
itself
is
a
daily
wondrous,
hotbed
of
creativity
and
collaborative
innovation.
A
Here's
one
story
for
you,
this
community,
which
has
no
guidance,
no
control
and
like
it
trust
me,
I've,
tried,
I
and
no
hierarchical
structure
is
doing
extraordinarily
rapid
and
effective
research
and
development
in
part,
because
they
told
me,
oh
no,
no,
you
can't
license
this
to
companies.
Everything
we
do
should
be
freely
available
and
open
to
everyone.
This
kind
of
thing
should
never
be
paid
for,
and
the
amount
of
friction
that
removes
has
been
extraordinary.
A
So
now,
I'll
talk
about
some
of
the
achievements
of
that
community
and
some
of
the
ongoing
developments.
One
of
the
things
we're
trying
to
do
right
now
is
to
democratize
this
whole
process.
We
have
developed
what
we
call
hand
o
matic
software,
which
runs
in
a
web
browser
and
is
intended
for
public
libraries,
public
schools,
maybe
kinkos
and
staples
anyplace
you're
likely
to
find
a
3d
printer
connected
to
a
computer.
You
can
walk
up
to
this
machine.
You
can
give
it
a
few
key
measurements.
A
A
How
did
this
happen?
Okay,
so
it
turns
out
we're
in
what
I
think
is
the
cosmic
sweet
spot.
We
have
everything
arrayed
around
the
circle
here
in
terms
of
emerging
trends,
which
all
seem
to
work
synergistically
with
jude
each
other,
and
we
have
smiling
children,
and
that
makes
for
an
incredibly
potent
motivating
and
rewarding
combination
in
terms
of
research
and
development.
Here
is
a
visualization
of
some
of
the
hands
that
we've
done
at
the
base.
A
Now,
by
the
way,
this
particular
visualization
was
done
by
hand.
But
one
of
the
stories
I
want
to
suggest
to
you
is
that
this
community
has
become
something
of
a
laboratory
potentially
for
the
study
of
all
of
these
trends.
This
particular
visualization,
simply
showing
the
designs
and
who
they
descended
from,
is
something
that
should
be
standard
everywhere
and
is
right
now
standard
or
it
could
be
done.
Programmatically
with
a
little
research
support.
A
A
This
is
the
Talon
hand
developed
by
Peter
binkley,
a
high
school
French
teacher
as
a
matter
of
fact
for
his
son,
whose
real
name
is
peregrine
hawthorne,
and
so
they
named
it
the
Talon
hand
and
when
Peregrine
tried
on
the
2.0
hand,
for
the
first
time
he
was
sitting
in
a
bus
stop
and
he
discovered
that
he
accidentally
crushed
a
soda
can,
while
he
was
sitting
there.
So
these
things
have
got
some
real
functionality.
He
was
a
package.
A
C
A
That's
right,
and
one
of
the
reasons
this
is
so
valuable
is
because
a
ten-thousand-dollar
prosthetic
that
will
be
outgrown
in
six
months
doesn't
make
any
sense.
The
lifespan
of
a
completely
intact
hand,
is
probably
on
the
order
of
weeks
or
months
or
maybe
even
days,
but
they're
easy
to
repair
and
they're
cheap
to
repair.
We
are,
if
I
didn't,
say
it
out
loud
giving
these
away
for
free
and
we
maintain
a
relationship
with
these
families
and
when
they
have
a
problem,
we
tell
them
how
to
do
it.
A
A
A
You
know
it's
interesting:
these
are
mechanical
devices,
so
when
they
get
some
resistance,
they
will
feel
it
on
their
palm
as
they
press
against
the
housing.
So
they
actually
do
get
force
feedback.
The
same
way.
We
do
right,
it's
just
that
the
force
is
transmitted
back
through
the
mechanical
parts
to
the
palm
itself.
A
A
Our
tour
of
interesting
designs,
Peter
binkley,
also
created
the
OD
Han,
which
is
for
really
little
kids,
who
may
not
have
the
muscle
strength
to
pull
cause
all
five
fingers
to
contract.
So
we
have
a
simple
hand,
but
then
there's
this
thing
going
on
this
is
this
is
Luke
Luke's
father
is
an
HVAC
construction
installer,
it's
it's
not
rocket
science
either
he
learned
how
to
use
the
3d
printer
and
how
to
do
the
3d
design
from
another
father
who
some
of
you
may
have
seen
on
television.
They
pull
mccartney.
A
Who
is
one
of
the
very
first
people
to
use
the
enable
hand?
This
is
the
way
this
whole
thing
spreads,
so
greg
learned
from
paul
how
to
do
this
and
then
Greg
observed
that
Luke
could
use
a
hand
that
had
not
one
but
two
thumbs,
one
on
either
side
of
his
hand,
which
is
a
good
idea,
and
so
this
kid
is
now
known
around
the
world
as
little
cool
hand
luke,
and
it's
an
example
of
the
kind
of
innovation
that
begins
coming
out
of
the
community.
A
A
So
that's
the
Tully
hand
and
by
the
way,
Tully
also
got
tired
of
waiting
for
us
to
finish
the
arm,
and
he
said
I'll
just
put
it
here
on
my
forearm.
So
Tully
is
a
double
innovator
right,
he'd
been
picking
things
up
with
the
stump
of
his
forearm
all
his
life,
so
there
you
go
I
had
the
experience
of
working
with
young
Derek
on
the
prototype
of
the
arm
model.
A
Derek's
arm
ends
here,
as
does
Tully's
and
I
was
explaining
to
Derek
that
we
were
testing
a
new
design
for
kids
like
him
that
he
would
have
to
be
a
test.
Pilot
and
I
wanted
him
to
understand
that
that
meant
that
nothing
was
going
to
work
and
that
he'd
have
to
be
really
careful
and
I'm
going
through.
A
Much
because
you
assigned
me
a
kid
who
didn't
have
a
wrist
didn't
even
have
an
elbow,
so
we
had
to
invent
our
own
myoelectric
arm,
which
we
did
in
six
weeks.
It
worked
really
well
so
we're
going
to
have
a
press
conference
this
friday.
The
university
wants
me
to
patent
this
and
to
start
a
company,
but
I
don't
think
anyone
should
ever
charge
for
this
kind
of
thing,
so
I'd
like
it
to
be
known
as
an
enable
arm.
A
So
this
is
the
enable
limb,
bitless
arm,
get
it
limitless,
and
it's
another
arm
in
our
armamentarium
and
it's
getting
better
and
cheaper
all
the
time
and
in
fact
this
whole
superhero
motif
has
has
gone
off
as
gone
gone.
Wow
this
little
kid
on
the
right
who
obviously
has
got.
One
of
the
great
smiles
in
human
history
got
a
hand
on
this
day.
He
posed
for
this
picture
with
what
he
called
his
Iron
Man
hand.
Local
television
picked
it
up
and
it
it
went
all
over
the
world.
A
A
There's
no
wrist
or
elbow
that's
where
the
myoelectric
arm
comes
in
and
the
way
that
works
is
you've,
got
sensors
on
the
residual
muscles
and
when
he
flexes
those
wannabe
muscles,
the
actual
motors
do
the
contraction
and
the
movement
that's
the
way.
You
know
a
hundred
thousand
dollar
or
$50,000
myoelectric
arm
works,
but
this
one
costs
350
dollars
and
it's
getting
cheap
and
it's
getting
better
and
people
are
doing
them
just
for
the
heck
of
it.
F
A
A
The
cousin
found
our
website
put
in
a
request
to
our
matchmaker
Melina
brown,
our
hero,
a
volunteer
stay-at-home
mom,
who
works
like
10
hours
a
day
on
this
for
free,
not
sustainable,
but
but
the
secret
of
our
current
success,
and
she
said,
oh,
my
goodness,
I
have
to
find
a
volunteer
in
China
and,
as
luck
would
have
it,
a
volunteer
from
China
showed
up
that
same
week.
Maybe
they
saw
the
same
news
report
within
seven
days
of
this
request.
This
kid
had
his
hand.
A
That
has
failed
to
provide
inexpensive,
assistive
devices
to
millions
of
people
around
the
world,
because
it's
locked
up
behind
a
barrier
of
regulation
and
extraordinarily
high
prices
built
in
part
by
the
infrastructure
of
regulation,
medical
coverage,
tax
codes
and
just
the
obscurity
of
it
all,
whereas
at
the
rate
we're
going,
I
think
every
public
library
is
going
to
be
a
hand
to
Matt
we're
also
doing
outreach.
We
were
sigh
I.
A
We
were
at
the
San
Mateo
maker
faire,
which
is
where
this
picture
was
taken
on
this
summer
we
got
a
blue
ribbon,
but
we're
doing
this
is
happening
all
over
the
world
there.
This
the
Singapore
Maker
Faire,
we
were
well
represented-
we've
been
represented
in
Malaysia.
We
hear
about
these
things
spontaneously.
Of
course,
all
of
the
descriptive
material
and
promotional
material
is
available.
Yes,
have.
A
A
Two
months
ago
we
visited
the
lab
of
Albert.
She
at
Johns
Hopkins
University,
who
has
been
on
60
minutes
twice
for
his
work
on
brain,
controlled,
robotic
arms
and
who
works
with
several
of
these
big
prosthetic
companies
and
in
the
course
of
the
day,
we
hatched
a
plan
for
a
conference
to
be
held
six
weeks
later,
and
we
pulled
it
off
and
at
that
conference,
which
you
can
see,
became
cover
story
for
onp
magazine.
A
We
brought
together
hundreds
of
parents
and
children
and
prosthetists,
don't
miss
the
videos
and
prosthetists
and
surgeons,
and
journalists
and
policymakers,
and
we
had
workshops
in
which
we
trained
the
prosthetists
on
our
amateur
developed
solutions
and
in
which
we
trained
the
parents
and
the
kids
on
how
to
build
and
repair
these
hands
themselves,
and
this
conference
was
sponsored.
I
am
answering
your
question
by
two
of
the
largest
prosthetics
companies
in
the
world.
A
One
was
hanger
clinic
and
the
other
was
dank
Meyer,
which
started
the
industry
during
the
civil
war
in
Baltimore
and
early
on
in
the
negotiations.
I
said:
why
are
you
supporting
something?
That's
disrupting
your
industry
and
they
had.
They
had
a
few
good
answers,
which
I
think
are
truly
the
right
answers.
One
was
we
like
what
you're
doing
and
we
are
here
to
help
we
have
to
figure
out
how
to
do
it.
Secondly,
some
of
them
said
or
I
said
to
them.
A
We
all
know
that
the
only
way
to
survive
a
disruptive
wave
is
to
figure
out
how
to
ride
it.
And
thirdly,
they
said
we
suspect
that
your
you've
opened
up
a
whole
new
market
right
now,
we're
not
supplying
hands
and
arms
to
children.
We're
not
supplying
devices
to
the
third
world.
You've
shown
that
it's
possible
that
there's
demand
that
there's
appeal
and
by
the
way
part
of
the
appeal
come
from
not
trying
to
make
them
look
like
real
arms,
but
making
them
the
real
expressions
of
the
psyche
of
these
kids.
A
A
Changed
and
improved
and
invented
new
techniques
for
this
hopkins
medical
conference
a
week
beforehand.
We
realized
that
we
were
getting
scores
of
families,
scores
of
patients
coming
to
the
conference
to
get
their
arms
and
they
were
not
giving
us
the
measurements
we
needed
to
prefabricate
the
hands
for
them
in
advance.
So
in
a
day's
time
the
community
invented
the
shoe
store
model
in
which
we
made
this
spreadsheet
and
explained.
We
need
hands
from
every
size
range
from
a
hundred
percent.
One
hundred
and
forty
percent.
A
Everyone
in
the
community
just
start
printing
hands.
Tell
us
what
color
it's
going
to
be
print
them
mail
them
to
Hopkins.
When
we
got
the
Hopkins,
there
were
about
a
hundred
and
forty
hands
there
and
they
were
assembled
during
the
workshops
and
25
kids
went
home
happy
with
their
hands.
I
mentioned
mass
customization
mass
distribution,
distributed
manufacturing,
crowdsourcing,
design,
development
and
distribution
channels.
It's
all
happening
here
in
a
really
I
think
interesting
way.
A
So
I
described
this
on
day,
one
as
a
global
volunteer,
assistive
technology
network
built
on
an
infrastructure
of
electronic
communications,
3d,
printing
and
goodwill,
but
I've
come
to
think
that
what
we've
got
going
here
is
potentially
much
broader
than
that.
There's
nothing
that
we're
doing
that
hinges
on
3d,
printing
and
prosthetics
per
se.
Heads-Up
displays
are
going
to
be
great
solutions
for
the
blind,
so
I
prototype,
2
reading
glasses.
In
my
lab
they're
new,
basically
Google
glass,
you
put
a
book
up
in
front
of
them.
A
Expression,
facial
expression,
emotional
readouts
for
autistic
children
or
live
subtitling
for
deaf
people.
There
are
people
working
on
all
of
these
things,
but
the
point
is
there
are
hundreds
of
thousands
of
high-tech
and
apparently
recruitable
humanitarian
technologists.
All
over
the
world,
who've
learned
how
to
make
web
pages,
which
is
basically
the
only
skill
you
need
for
the
three
cases
I
just
mentioned
to
you,
who
can
be
pressed
into
service
in
a
really
inspiring
and
pro-social
and
potentially
world-changing
way.
A
It's
plausible
that
within
five
or
ten
years,
inexpensive
prosthetics
are
not
going
to
be
an
issue.
It's
possible
that
well
before
that
industry
will
have
picked
up
on
this
or
3d
printing
will
no
longer
be
the
cool
thing,
I'd
like
to
think
that
the
enable
community
will
have
moved
on
to
whatever
is
the
next
opportunity
for
crowdsource
humanitarian
assistance,
and
it
will
continue
and
continue
to
grow.
A
So
I
think
there
are
lots
of
possibilities
here,
and
this
slide
color
scheme
notwithstanding
the
future
is
bright.
But
it
is
quite
true
that,
while
we
have
just
in
the
last
six
weeks
formed
the
enabling
the
future
foundation,
we
are
seeking
a
board
of
directors.
We
are
seeking
donors.
We
are
seeking
funders
to
study
what
we're
doing,
which
I
think
is
a
really
interesting
research
opportunity.
We
are
seeking
funders
to
fund
these
activities
and
we
have
none
of
those
things
it
in
part,
because
everything
else
has
been
happening
so
quickly.
A
So
one
of
the
ironies
of
this
situation
is
that,
to
the
extent
that
we've
been
able
to
do
an
end
run
around
issues
of
economic
center
issues
of
corporate
incorporation,
issues
of
building
a
board
of
directors
or
even
developing
a
nonprofit
business
plan,
we've
gone
really
really
fast
when
it
comes
to
all
of
this
other
stuff,
which
many
of
you
are
more
familiar
with
we're
no
better
than
anyone
else
and
I
would
welcome
your
ideas
and
your
assistance
or
your
thoughts
and
that's
my
presentation.
Thank
you.
C
G
A
It's
really
not
clear
I
mean
among
the
questions
which
aren't
frankly
completely
clear
to
me
is:
do
does
one
want
to
allow
this
just
to
continue
as
a
practice
among
a
disorganized
community
or
does
one
want
to
create
some
kind
of
a
legal
entity
which
we
have
done,
but
we're
still
rationalizing
it
to,
for
example,
work
on
licensing
policies.
It
turns
out
the
open
source
software
licenses,
which
we
use
are
not
according
to
our
attorney,
who
wrote
the
GPL
and
know
something
about
open
source
software
licenses.
Don't
really
cover
3d
printed
objects
very
well.
A
There
may
be
a
need
for
a
new
family
of
licenses.
There
are
liability
issues
that
need
to
be
done.
I
didn't
mention
it,
but
I'm
being
approached
by
aid
agencies
on
a
weekly
basis.
Now
who
say
and
we're
doing
some
of
this
who
say
we
have
tens
or
hundreds
of
thousands
of
people,
many
of
the
children
who've
lost
arms,
either
in
West
in
Africa
or
in
Syria
or
in
Afghanistan,
and
we
want
these
solutions.
A
I
think
they
need
someone
to
talk
to
so
and
and
right
now,
I'm
one
of
the
mouthpieces
of
the
organization.
That's
you
know
there
are
several
others.
The
woman
who
writes
the
blog
is
in
is
a
photographer.
She
does
wedding
photographs
but
she's
working
on
this.
All
of
the
time.
I
think
we
need
to
pay
her,
the
woman
who
does
the
matchmaking
if
she
goes
we're
dead
in
the
water.
So
for
all
of
those
reasons,
I
think
we
need
some
infrastructure,
some
organization
and
we're
going
to
need
some
people.