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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: August 30, 2015

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REAL LIFE NEWS: 3D-PRINTED BIONIC HAND WINS PRIZE

by Hazed

The James Dyson Award is an engineering prize given to projects in the UK, and this year it has just been awarded to a bionic hand that can be created using a 3D printer.

Using 3D printing means a custom-built socket and hand can be built in less than two days, which is much faster than the weeks or months it currently takes to get such prosthetics – and it also makes it a lot cheaper.

The inventor, Joel Gibbard, has created the Open Bionics project in Bristol, England, and plans to start selling the prosthetics next year. The £2,200 prize will no doubt help towards getting this off the ground.

Joel explained that prosthetic is, “Very lightweight and it can be customised for each person. The hand is basically a skeleton with a ‘skin’ on top. So, we can do different things to the skin – we can put patterns on it, we can change the styling and design. There’s quite a lot of flexibility there.”

He plans to charge customers £2,000, which will include the cost of the fitting. This compares to between £20,000 and £60,000 for traditionally made devices.

The hand detects muscle movements using sensors stuck to the owner’s skin. This allows the wearer to control the fingers and their gripping action. Sensors built into the digits can tell when they come into contact with an object in order to limit the pressure they exert, so they can pick up fragile objects such as eggs without breaking them.

The current design of the hand works for patients who have lost their forearms, but ultimately the project wants to be able to help those with above-elbow amputations as well.

One exciting aspect of the project is that it is open source – meaning that the designs are freely available for anyone to use and adapt without charge, so long as they in turn share any improvements they make.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34044453

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