How 3-D-Printed Prosthetic Hands Are Changing These Kids’ Lives | Short Film Showcase

What it was like before having this hand or like having like any hand? It was pretty hard. I get bullied a lot, and like I really wanted to be part of a team. I wanted to have friends. I wanted to act like I actually had like a right hand, and it wouldn't really care if I had that.

Enable is an online global community of volunteers who are using 3D printers and 3D design software to make prosthetics for children and adults who are missing fingers, hands, and wrists, and we're giving them away for free. One of the reasons 3D printing is so well-suited to this problem is no two cases are exactly the same. You know, some kids are missing all of their fingers; some are missing even the palm and the wrist. One of the reasons we can produce these devices for an incredibly low cost, well under $100, is these devices are entirely body-driven, purely mechanical. So, there are no motors, there are no sensors, there are no heavy batteries. So, it's a very lightweight, very simple device.

These hands don't even pretend to look like normal hands; they're very different. These things look like something Iron Man or a superhero would have, and the kids love them for that reason. Once I had this hand, my friends would ask, "Hey dude, how's it going? Has anything changed with it? Is it working better?" It's pretty cool how they're actually involved; they're actually talking to me about it, and I love this because I could pick up stuff and I could help.

It's been really great to have Kieran and his family come to Pure, you know, to prototype these new ideas, to test drive these new hands, and to be able to see the higher perspective, you know, what this is all about, to see how that hour of CAD, you know, translated into him being able to hold his coat or zip a zipper better. What Enable has done is it seems that they've kind of proven that regular people can design amazing things if they're given access to the tools.

I think it's pretty cool that I'm one of the people actually testing this out for a bunch of other people. It's going to be really awesome to see it when it's so big—like every kid that has a problem like me will have a hand.