Introducing "Robohand": A Cheap and Effective Alternative for Children with Hand Disabilities
Sunday, June 30, 2013 at 6:15PM 
Richard Van As (left) and Ivan Owen (right) tinkering away (photo credit: DigitalTrends.com)What happens when a South African carpenter with a mangled hand meets a special effects artist and puppeteer from Bellingham, Washington? Well, in Richard Van As and Ivan Owen’s case, their chance meeting via YouTube has led to over 100 children with hand disabilities receiving an affordable and effective mechanical hand.
The two first teamed up, initially collaborating on Skype, to create a prototype to help Van As after a rogue table saw in his home workshop destroyed several fingers on his right hand. Owen was in a unique position to help as he had previously built a puppet hand with tendon-like steel cables allowing for dexterity and bending. While finalizing their first prototype, Van As got a call from a mother looking for the same thing to help her 5-year-old son Liam who had been born with no fingers on his right hand. The two immediately got to work. As Owen describes Liam’s first trial with his new hand, “He bent his wrist and made the fingers curl. You could see the light bulbs go off and he looked up and said, ‘It copies me.’ It was really an incredible moment.” And so “Robohand” was born.
Van As and Owen’s Robohand allows anyone to download the design and make a hand with no more than a 3-D printer and around $150 in parts. As hand prostheses can cost thousands of dollars and since there aren’t even that many options available for children, Robohand is certainly a welcomed creation. 12-year-old Leon McCarthy can certainly attest to the awesomeness of Robohand; after using his for the first time he exclaimed, “Look, it’s working, the Frankenstein hand is functioning! I am holding my lunch bag.”
To learn more about Robohand and the story behind it, check out the below link for Steve Henn and Cindy Carpien’s article on NPR:
NPR: “3-D Printer Brings Dexterity to Children with No Fingers.”
Also, check out Liam and his Robohand in action below!
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