Robohand - 3D-Print An Inexpensive Mechanical Hand Yourself
After Richard Van As, a master carpenter in Johannesburg, South Africa, lost four fingers in a work accident, he decided to use the tools available to him to remedy his situation. He traded ideas with Ivan Owen, of Washington State, who used his prior experience with mechanical prop hands to make design suggestions. Their collaboration resulted in the Robohand, a set of mechanical fingers that open and close to grasp things based on the motion of the wrist. When the wrist folds and contracts, the cables attaching the fingers to the base structure cause the fingers to curl. Nearly all the parts of an inexpensive Robohand are 3D-printed on MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D printers. Robohand was not imagined as a service or a product, so all of the design files and instructions for creating one are on Thingiverse . People around the world can assemble Robohands for themselves or for others.
Transcript
00:00:14 When I cut my fingers off it was on a Saturday afternoon, and I, I had gone to the hospital. From there I had actually decided, when I was in the emergency room that I'm going to make a set of fingers for myself. I originally asked a lot of people for some help, and I sort of was turned down, before you could even open up a discussion with people by saying it's impossible. The more people tell me it's impossible the more I decided that it is possible,
00:00:46 you know. And I started investigating things online and all the different prosthetics that are available. And none of them are trade friendly, and none of them are of functional as in returning functionality to your hand as a tradesman. I first started thinking about prosthetic hands and fingers, when I was 12, 12 or 13 years old in shop class and terrified of power tools. Ivan played a very important role in this, his ideas, and stuff were great for the project. I have a background in mechanical special effects, primarily making
00:01:23 mechanical props and one of the things that I built in the past were, essentially giant puppet hands. Richard contacted me after seeing a video of one of the mechanical prop hands and offered me the opportunity to collaborate with him. We started experimenting with 3D Printing and utilizing the machines that MakerBot provided. We got the printers and then Ivan was already back in the US. I would do sketches and scan them and send them over, email them over and then he'd script something and send it, the file back and I'd print it and then I'd say no hang on this is not working, and
00:01:59 change this and change that. It was up and down. The impact that utilizing the MakerBot Replicator 2 had upon our design process was was incredible. It dramatically increased the speed at which we could prototype and try out ideas and gave us the ability to both hold, a physical copy of the exact same thing even though we are separated by ten thousand miles. Originally it wasn't a consideration to, to help other people, it was all just about me at that stage. And then as we went along and saw that one prototype became another one and so on,
00:02:38 and so forth. I saw that this could help many other people. Liam was born without fingers. Having two previous kids with all ten fingers, it was quite a shock for us. Liam's mom, Yulandi she, she sent us a message on Facebook because we had now put this in and open up a little page on Facebook. And she contacted us with just a little message and then I sent her my cellphone number and then we had a chat and, she said you know she'll do anything,
00:03:12 to be able to try and make Liam's life easier. So I hadn't at that stage even thought about a complete hand or, Amniotic Band Syndrome was a, that's the first time I ever heard about. I've never seen it you know, and, she came along and I had a look at all of this and we decided you know what let's just make a complete hand. It was something I never thought of that, you know a person can do and to see him the first time, grasp something, and have it in his, right hand it was amazing. "Put it down and then pick it up again. Now pick it up with, that's right, clever boy." The hand that we developed for
00:03:58 Amniotic Band Syndrome children, and adults, is driven by the motion of the wrist. So they don't have the fingers and generally they have only the palm and no thumb. So it's attached to the hand, a hand kept in a gauntlet and to that is attached cabling. When you, you bend your wrist forward, it makes the fingers close and you bring it up and it opens the fingers. Everything other than three different, three different things are made by the MakerBot. All the fingers and the phalanges,
00:04:34 the tips, the thumb, the knuckle block, the wrist hinges are all printed. Only then that we then add to it is cabling, the hardware which is all stainless steel, and then the thermoplastic. That you cut the sheets the piece that you need the size, and you put it into hot water, and it goes translucent and you take it out, and then just molds to the exact size of your hand and stuff. Waldo's mom phoned me one day and I was actually doing a wood work job on site, and she said to me she saw us on SABC-TV. So, I saw everything, emailed the guys, got the numbers, and contacted Richard.
00:05:16 We chatted and we set it up, and they came through one week and I had an Occupational Therapist help us with the cap. We made the cap everything he had, a lot of dexterity problems, and the OT gave him some exercises to do. And by the time he had left us he could already move his wrist a whole lot more than he originally could. He is really keen on wearing it. I think if he could go to bed with it he would also do that. It makes him more, I don't know some something special, someone special. With the MakerBot, as he grows all we do is, we scale it up and print him another one,
00:05:57 and the hardware just gets taken from that put onto the new hand. And then we'd like those hands returned so then we can then filter it onto the next person. It actually brought some tears to my eyes to know that he'll be able to function like normal other kids with two hands. Be able to, play ball, play cricket, play rugby, drive his bike. everything like a normal child. Hold a glass with two hands. It was really amazing and, to see the joy in his eyes also, it made me really happy. It's fun to have,
00:06:31 awesome, and I can do almost everything with it. When you're busy making one of these hands and you make a mistake and you break something or you drill it wrong or something like that, you just go in, set up the machine and you print a whole new set of parts. This 3D Printer actually makes it a lot easier for Richard and Robohand to do the printing. The MakerBot and being able to swap files up and down via the internet, cut out our, our sort of prototyping down from a week down to twenty minutes, it was incredibly fast.
00:07:07 For the first time user I think he's pretty amazing, and you can see that he's, he's open to the hand doing things that he wants to do. Dylan's father contacted me, and said that he's actually a friend of Liam's dad, and he's been watching it all and he'd like to give his son an opportunity, and see if I can help him as well. We are one of the first people to test out this new piece of equipment.
00:07:43 And as I saw today on the finished product, my boy is very happy, which makes me happy. If somebody has a child that's got Amniotic Band Syndrome, and wants to make their own hand, we actually believe it's possible. On Thingiverse we've put all the files and everything needed. All they have to do is get access to a 3D Printer. Print out the hand, put it all together. We suggest you find an Occupational Therapist to help you with the, the gauntlet and the hand cap. But we also don't think it's impossible if you want to apply your mind, to actually do the whole thing yourself. I am actually quite excited about having a Robohand.
00:08:21 I'm excited to try cricket, golf and go swimming with it. On Tuesday, when we're going to play cricket, I'm going to be able to catch, catch the ball with my right hand now. When I saw Dylan's little face light up, your heart just, skips a beat, you're so proud, you're sad, all your emotions, all at once. It's amazing. Maybe Robohand took the 3D Printing world by surprise with what we've done with it. But if you ever look at the broad spectrum of it I think that, printing a mechanical device that can aid you when you've lost fingers is just, it's a tiny little part of it.
00:09:15 I'll always thank Richard and MakerBot and Robohand for the opportunity and everything that they've done to us. I can't explain the feeling I got, you know, that there's still people out there helping others, and yeah I'm quite amazed by what this printer can do. I can pick up stuff. I couldn't - just, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I had it. I can throw a ball. My friends think it's awesome.
00:09:50 I like my Robohand.