- i'm actually gonna use my arm so i can high-fiveso many people, 106. - you're gonna high-five 106 people? - yeah. - aren't you gonna get tired? - no, because my robo-arm's going to do allthe work.
fun things to 3d print, - alex was born without a fully formed arm.a condition that affects around 1,500 babies born in the u.s. every year. i'm here to seehim get fitted with a new arm. we have come a long way in the development of prostheticlimbs. you might think of the earliest prosthetic as maybe a peg-leg for a sailor, but it actuallydates back much further than that. in fact,
over 3,000 years ago to ancient egypt. thethought was that our lives have a finite length, but that the after-life is eternal. and accordingto the theology of osiris, the body needed to be complete, because the soul would leavethe body, in theory, and every night, come back to replenish its energy in the body.and it was so important that that body be full. and so there are many instances of prostheticnoses, ears, toes, and limbs, which were used in ancient egypt to ensure that the body wascomplete. but a lot of those prosthetics weren't actually functional. so prosthetics developedfrom simply being aesthetic aids to actually becoming functional. globally, there are anestimated 3 million people living without an upper limb. over the last 10 to 20 years,we've seen remarkable advancement in the development
of bionic limbs. the problem with these prostheses,is they typically cost on the order of $20,000 to $100,000. now, here at ucf, they're buildingan arm which can be used and manufactured for much, much cheaper, like 1% of that cost.how did you get inspired to design an arm for children? - i was on my way to work, and i was listeningto the radio, and there was an interview with the person who developed the first 3d-printedhand. and i went into my research lab and i said i have to be a part of this, what cani do to help? and then we had alex's parents contact us directly saying, "can you buildour son an arm?" - the arm itself is completely 3d-printedand so are the joints between the fingers.
so there's a cable which runs down the lengthof each finger and back into the hand. they would normally be connected up to this servomotor, here. now the idea is to trigger this motor via the arm of the person who's wearingit. so they would wear three electrodes on their upper arm. when the person wearing thearm squeezes their muscle, there's a little electrical pulse, which triggers this motorto pull in 180 degrees. one pulse will close the hand, like this, and then another pulsewill relax it, so it opens back up. - our arm provides a level of self-confidenceto the children. whenever they're going to school there's questions asked, like "whathappened to your arm? did you get bit by a shark or run over by a car or something?"after we gave them the arm it quickly changed
to "whoa, that's a cool arm! how does it work?where did you get it?" - i like to do stuff with my arm. like, pickup stuff, hold my paper when i'm drawin' i actually bring it to school so i can actuallydo other stuff. - 3d printing is relatively new technologybut it provides us a low-cost solution to be able to create things so we can print somethingout and say, it doesn't work, and just redesign it and print it out again the next day. weproduce our arm for just about $300 now, whereas some of the prosthetics on the market cango upwards of $40,000. insurance companies typically don't want to pay for it for kidsbecause every six months, they're going to have to replace it as the kid grows. but thisallows us to be able to reproduce an arm for
about maybe $100 and just print out a newone. - how important is the aesthetic design, theartistic design of the arm? - we thought kids just wanted to blend in,to feel normal, but we found it's much more about personal identity and expression. - we want to make sure the kid is expressinghimself, or herself, with the arm. self expression for a kid is very important. - we have one sleeve right here. this oneis actually themed around the disney movie tangled, we provided this for a little girlnamed madeline. - the design is so simple that it is easyto print out on location and put together
even with very little technical knowledge.and also the functionality of the design, with only three electrodes actuating the oneservo, make it so that people can learn to use it very quickly. and that, i think, iswhat makes it so powerful. - think i'll have any luck there? 50/50? - 50/50. alright! - look at that, i can give it to you. - yup. - i'm really excited right now about tryingit out, and how to do summersaults, and do some things i've never done before. i wantto play video games with it and hug with two
hands. - how have you been able to crack this problemthat other people haven't before? - we have an incredible team of very diversebackgrounds. and so bringing all of our common experience together, we were able to findthis type of solution. our main base is in orlando, florida at the university of centralflorida. we have our designers in california, i'm here in germany, and everywhere in between,we have people trying to help us and support our project. although it's challenging, we'remaking it work. - a lot of our communication comes throughmicrosoft onenote, and we use this product to be able to share information through eachother, specifically since albert is in germany
so that's a whole ocean away. - [albert] i think the best part of onenoteis that you can edit it from anywhere in the world and have it simultaneously update anyoneelse on the project. so being able to get updates from my team and see the progressthey're making, enables me to help do my job here in germany. - what is the collective project? - microsoft is looking for students who arewanting to impact their community with great ideas. and they're looking to rally theircommunities and the world around them to help bring it to life.
- our biggest needs right now is one, we needfunding. we need more donations to be able to make this a reality and make these children'sdreams come true. - you want to provide free arms to every kidwho needs one. - absolutely, we don't feel like people shouldprofit from a child without an arm. - we're hoping for people that jump on boardand help develop arms for their local area, if they want to help with design, they'remore than welcome to join our project and be designing arms. they can be printing ourarms, and helping fit them for their local community, or they can just send us adviceon how to best tailor these for the future. we can use all the help we can get.
- where do you want to see the limbitlessarm go? - my hope for the future is to be able toincrease the functionality of the arm to encompass maybe an elbow or even an upper limb socket.and then be able to produce this on a larger scale for as many children in the world whoneed it. - as each child comes to us, we really understandand appreciate the need for the readily adaptable, readily deployable solution to each individualand unique biology. - we're trying to get an elbow going for alexso he has not only hand movement but he can also move the elbow as well. to overcome thatwe have to make this also bigger to be able to put another servo in there. we like ideas.not just, this is our way this is how it has
to be. anything's possible. we like to broadenour field as well. - i think we're just at the beginning of somethingreally great and i hope that with a little bit of help we're going to be able to takethis to the un and unicef and really impact children all over the world. - thank you guys for making this big projectfor me. - that's fantastic, thank you so much forchatting with me. - thank you! - ah, haha, you're very welcome. this videowas supported by microsoft onenote. in their collective project, they have identified studentgroups around the country who are working
together, using their software in order tochange the world. and the whole point of the collective project is to bring people togetherand you can get involved as well by clicking
on the link in the description, you couldhelp by providing new designs for arms, by helping with software or even 3d printingin your own community. and that will help get more of these arms out to the kids whoneed them. so, i really want you to get involved, check out the link in the description.
