Liam

We at Robohand are very humbled by the response we’ve had to the Press Release done by MakerBot. We are in awe that so many people have shared, tweeted and posted all over the internet, our story and our journey.

We have had an overwhelming number of people contact us to offer their help in printing out hands for people. We appreciate the gestures and are tying to co-ordinate a “Helping Hands” database of people around the globe. Our hope is that this database will grow and grow and more people all over the world will be in a position to print hands for people.

For the enthusiast, you don’t need our permission! The files are free and available so if you know of someone that could use a hand, please extend yours, and offer them the help. This journey was never about making money but if every one person who owns a 3D printer created one hand for someone, we could make a magnitude of difference in so many lives.

Pay It Forward!

Thank you again to Annelise and the MakerBot team for your generosity and opening the world up to our idea.

Find the press release here.
Find the printable files here.

Xixi is 9 years old and was born limb different. She is adopted and was born with ABS, like so many other children all over the world.  Xixi was born in Wuhan China and was adopted by the Padgett’s in 2005 where she now lives with them and her 3 older siblings, in the USA.

Xixi’s Mom, Melissa says that Xixi has not let her limb difference hinder her in any way at all. Brother Adam (age 10) and Xixi learned to tie their shoe laces together on the same day and Adam helped her to learn to ride her bike this Spring. Xixi had some balance issues in the beginning as she could not hold the handle bar, but once she got the balance right, she was off and away and spent the entire spring break on her bike.

Xixi’s Hand today

Xixi is not only academic and loves school; mostly getting straight A’s, but she draws, writes, cooks, takes Tae Kwon Do lessons, where she just earned her green belt with two stripes, and now she is starting to practice with a bow and arrow.

Home Cooked Blackberry Pie

Her Mom says that she loves to shop for clothes, shoes and purses. She likes thrift stores and clothes shops best.

She has lots of friends at school and loves to have her girlfriends over as her older siblings are all boys, so she feels a bit left out being the only girl at home.

One of her best friends is another girl from China who also has ABS. They were adopted the same year.

A Family Outing

Xixi loves animals, especially kittens. At home they have 5 cats. Xixi was afraid of dogs when she was very little, but she’s not afraid of any animals now (except bees). She plays with the two dogs at home as well as the hedgehog and the snake.

We at Robohand feel very lucky to bring Xixi into our family. However, this is going to be a difficult process as she lives so far away. Xixi’s Mom will need to provide us with moulds of her hand so that Richard can work out the sizing of the Robohand and the fitting of the hand cap and gauntlet.

This is also not going to be a fast process and will take many weeks up and down, until Xixi has her functioning mechanical hand.

We are very excited at the prospect of this long distance collaboration and helping to enable Xixi in her everyday life.

Thank you to the Padgetts for contacting us and to everyone who has contributed to our project, enabling us to make these things happen.

I first heard about ROBOHAND in early February 2013, on Talk Radio 702 when John Robbie telephonically interviewed Richard [Rich]. I sent an Email to Rich who had lost 4 fingers whilst using a circular saw and told him of the loss of the top two segments of my left hand index finger after being bitten by a Violin spider on 28th August 2011.

I had investigated a prosthetic finger, but as my finger and hand still needed corrective surgery, I was waiting for my hand to stabilize after this surgery.

Rich telephoned me back that same day and I made an appointment to see him the next day.

He turned out to be a straight talking no nonsense family man, with a great sense of humour [which I pushed to the limit], a charming and supportive wife Beth.

Rich took measurements of my ‘stump’ and the angle of movement I was capable of and said he would work on a ‘ROBOHAND’ and contact me when it was ready.

On Sunday [no rest for the wicked] 21st April 2013 I arrived at Rich’s house where Rich assembled the prosthesis step by step. His Robohand was the first one he had produced and mine was number two.

Rich has a workshop at his house with everything he needs to produce the finished article. His workbench has dozens of spare parts for mechanical fingers.

The prosthesis is custom made one step at a time with checking measurements being taken as each step is progressed. It consists of several parts that have to be aligned correctly in order for the ‘finger’ to be functional. The ‘finger’ is straight when the ‘stump’ is straight, but as the ‘stump’ moved towards the thumb, the top of the finger curls inwards to meet the thumb giving the ‘finger’ gripping power.

All that remains is to ‘decorate’ the glove, then train the brain to recognize and use the Robofinger.

This is Dave’s amputated finger.

Dave lost his finger due to a spider bite. A really poisonous nasty spider bite that made him incredibly ill. I have not posted any photo’s of what Dave’s hand and arm looked like after the spider bite or the surgery as they are very, very gory. But this is the end result. Dave lost most of his index finger on his left hand.

Robofinger for the left hand too? Yes. Robofinger has been developed for left and right handed people. Although Rich lost his fingers on his right hand and developed the Robofinger originally for the right hand, we have created it for lefties too!

Richard had to create Dave a special ring as the standard ring did not fit due to Dave’s stump being slightly shorter.

Richard had chosen a medium size finger and that was the picture we posted on our Facebook page as the one for Dave, but Dave required a small, so Rich had to start with anodizing first before putting the finger together. The anodizing is quite a lengthy process which took up a major part of the day.

While the parts were anodizing Rich started with moulding the hand cap for everything to attach to. It’s slightly different creating this hand cap to the one for the full Robohand as thumb and other fingers are still in tact.

Preparing the hand cap is also a complicated and lengthy process. We advise this be done by an Occupational Therapist. The hand cap takes a lot of cutting, sanding and moulding. On, off, on, off, a tweak here, cut a bit off there, make sure the palm is not completely covered and so it goes. But finally Rich had it perfect.

Rich put the anodized parts together and so the Robofinger began to take its shape. While sitting with Dave, we discovered that he is an avid astronomer, a musician, a painter as well as holding his day job in Electronics. He is a very busy man so having a Robofinger is a top priority.

Once the piece began to take the shape of Robofinger Rich began attaching everything to the hand cap. Many fittings on and off to ensure no pinching and the fulcrum is correct.

After a long hard day for Rich, seeing Dave’s smile when he tried on his finished Robofinger was well worth it. Welcome to the Robohand Family Dave!

We are very excited to announce that MakerBot is coming to South Africa at the end of March to spend a few days with Richard to document the innovation and design in prototyping with the MakerBot Replicator 2 he was donated.

In the very short two and half months that Richard has had his Makerbot Replicator 2, he has clocked up 179 hours of printing and prototyping time. The Replicator 2 had to have its first service and is already back at work.

This innovative printer brings a new standard in desktop 3D printing. It’s the best desktop 3D printer on the market. With a resolution capability of 100 microns and a massive 410 cubic inch build volume, the MakerBot Replicator™ 2 Desktop 3D Printer is the easiest, fastest, and most affordable tool for making professional quality models.

Visit their website and experience the wonder of 3D printing in a whole new way www.makerbot.com

Below is an exert from their website:

World class additive manufacturing

Professional-quality prototypes. Highly complex models. Attractive pieces of art. With the new MakerBot Replicator™2 Desktop 3D Printer, you can expect these and more. On a 3D printer, quality is often measured by the height of each layer, with smaller layers meaning higher resolution. We’ve dropped the default layer height all the way down to 100 microns, giving you smooth surfaces without any post-production. Make things you’re proud to demo to your boss or show off to your family. Discover the look and feel of the new standard in desktop 3D printing.

Enough room to make it BIG

A new standard in Desktop 3D Printing demands a build volume that’s bigger in all three dimensions. The MakerBot Replicator™2 Desktop 3D Printer has a build volume of 410 cubic inches, so you can think and build bigger than ever. That’s 37% more volume than the original MakerBot Replicator™ Desktop 3D Printer that you can use to make big things or entire multi-part projects at one time. Combined with our speed improvements, you now get much more done in much less time. Finally a desktop 3D printer made for multitasking.

MakerBot PLA Filament

Now you can do your highest quality work and do a favor to the environment, too. We’ve adapted the MakerBot Replicator™2 Desktop 3D Printer to work perfectly with PLA, the renewable bioplastic that sticks to the platform reliably with practically no peeling, curling, sliding or shrinking. With MakerBot PLA Filament you will make professional-quality prototypes and huge pieces with dimensional stability, meaning that what you design is what you get. What’s more, you will use 32% less energy than building with ABS plastic. Find out why MakerBot PLA Filament helps us set a standard in desktop 3D printing

Powder-coated steel chassis

To make the Replicator™2 sturdy and durable enough for high-speed printing, we gave it an industrial strength chassis. The powder-coated steel is also resistant to changes in temperature and humidity, making it adaptable to your work space.

Thank you to the MakerBot team for allowing us this opportunity to put your product through its paces and create ingenious designs to help people with no fingers.

The Robohand ready to make its trip over the sea with the MakerBot Team

Since having the Makerbots we have uploaded our design to Thingiverse for download by the public if they would like to print their own.

Visit them at www.thingiverse.com