As my second semester of my senior year approached, I was very nervous and excited about doing the senior project. I knew that I wanted to do my project on prosthetic devices as they are something that I find fascinating. When the class began, I was informed that I needed to make some sort of product to go along with my project that would be meaningful and benefit someone in the community. However, I was not sure what I could do to make this project meaningful.
I began doing research and the only ideas I could come up with involved making posters and brochures to hang up in a medical office. I turned in my project proposal to the teacher and thought to myself about how lame my project was going to be and contemplated changing my subject. My other subject ideas were definitely easier but they were not as fascinating to me. I decided to continue with my idea and began doing research for my paper. After looking at many different sources about the future of prosthetic devices, I came across one that involved a father making a prosthetic hand for his son with a 3D printer. After reading this article, I knew how I was going to make my project epic!
I started researching more about how I could make my own 3D printed hand and quickly found several different designs. I emailed the company that made the design that I wanted to try to ask them questions about it and possibly get my hands on some of the materials that they used. The company was located in Johannesburg, South Africa and they were not easy to get a hold of. After a couple of weeks of not hearing back from them, I decided to proceed with the hand on my own. I used the 3D printer located in the engineering department at the high school and began to print off pieces. From the instructions about the hand, it looked like building a prosthetic hand would not be a difficult task. However, I was very wrong.
I wanted to make this hand for a girl that I knew that lived in Ennis, Montana named Kailey. I had known her through attending school together and thought that it would be a great opportunity to work with her. She was born with just an index finger and thumb on her left hand and just an index finger on her right hand. I reached out to her mother about what I was wanting to do and asked her if she would be willing to help me. The response that I got was amazing. The family was more than willing to try my idea and was excited that their daughter would possibly have access to a prosthetic device. I told them that I would get back to them within the next few weeks once I had done more research and came up with some ideas. In the end, it took more than a few weeks to contact them again.
I tried to make the first design that I found right away. I printed off all of the pieces and bought all of the tools necessary to assemble it. I was missing only a few things when I began to assemble it but proceeded anyways. The instructions that I used measured everything metrically so I needed to convert all of the measurements in order to buy the necessary drill bits and screws. I got everything as close to the right size as I possibly could but still ran into many issues throughout the construction process. I drilled out the proper holes to adjust the sizing and then began assembling the pieces. After just over six hours, I had the palm and fingers of my hand built. I just had to build the ridges that run along the wrist and thread the cord to make the fingers functional. This is where I ran into my biggest problem. In order to make the ridges that go along the wrist, I needed to find orthoplastic. I thought that I would be able to talk to Treasure State Orthotics and Prosthetics Clinic and they would be able to help me to find the material. They had never heard of it. I spent several hours online searching for it and was unable to find it. I realized that it was time to go back to the drawing board.
I continued to search for more designs on items that would work to build this ridge that would run along the wrist. I needed this part to make tension in the cord which would cause the fingers to close. I found a design that I thought might work and printed that out next. To put things simply, this did not work either. I continued to do more research and found a design for a whole different hand. It had many similarities to my original hand but had ridges that I thought would work. I decided to print off the pieces and start assembling them. Before the pieces had finished printing, I finally got a response from the company which I tried to contact previously since I was using their design. They informed me that the hand that I was trying to make would not work for the girl that I planned to give the hand to. Instead I needed a partial hand. They were not willing to give me the design for this hand and told me that if I wanted it then they could print off the components and put in the necessary material to build the hand. This sounded like a great idea until I got to the part of the email that said that I would have to pay five hundred dollars and the shipping of the product. After receiving this disappointing email, I decided that I was going to design and build my own prosthetic hand.
I began thinking of different possibilities for the prosthetic hand for Kailey. After coming up with some different ideas, I called Kailey’s mother back to get more information. I had her send me pictures of Kailey’s hand and do some basic measurements of her wrist and fingers. When I went to school with Kailey in the past, I didn’t pay very much attention to her hand. All I knew was that she had only two fingers and the rest I assumed to be more like a regular hand. Once I received the pictures, I realized that Kailey did not really have a palm structure and that was something I would have to include in the hand. I took the pictures and measurements to my engineering teacher. We brainstormed several ideas but were not sure which would be best and it found it hard to tell what we should do by just looking at the pictures. We decided that we should try to meet up with Kailey and her mother to get a better look at the hand and some better ideas.
I called them that night, and they informed me that they would be coming in to Bozeman the next day for a doctor’s appointment. They told me that they would have time to come by the school and meet with my engineering teacher and I so we could get some better ideas of what to do. They came to the school and I was able to meet with them for about forty-five minutes to discuss different ideas and take more measurements. After school that day, I drew up the first needed components for the hand on a Computer Animated Design system and got them ready to print. We set the part to print overnight so it would be ready to go the next day.
I came into school the next day and the part was ready to go. By just looking at it, it was hard to tell that it would become a hand. I needed to carve out a lot of parts in order for it fit Kailey’s hand well and become a functional prosthesis. I also still needed to attach fingers and other parts. I realized that I needed to meet with Kailey again to get some more measurements and figure out where and how I needed to carve out the plastic. I was planning to go to Ennis the next day to help my parents clean up some stuff at our storage units so I called Kailey’s mother that night to set up another appointment. This meeting was very short and only lasted about fifteen minutes, but I got enough information to continue proceeding on my project.
I continued working on the device that week. My next step was to file out different parts of the plastic piece in order to contour to her hand. My dad helped me with this step by cutting out part of the hand. We then planned to file around that area to make it smooth and more comfortable for Kailey. This plan turned bad very quickly. When I started to file the plastic, it began to melt. My piece started to look more messy than it originally had, and I realized that I needed a new plan on how to manipulate the piece. I decided to stop for the night and talk to my engineering teacher the next day.
When I talked to my teacher, he told me that we could just use the piece as a rough prototype. I agreed and proceeded with making the hand. I found a design for a piece that I could attach around Kailey’s wrist and then attach to the hand to make the prosthetic functional. I printed that piece off next and continued to make the hand. After a few more hours, I had what I believed could be a functional hand that would work for Kailey. I called her mom that night to try to set up another meeting. However, I learned that I would have to put the hand on hold as the family was going to visit relatives in Maryland.
Once the family returned, I set up an appointment to meet with them and see if the hand would work. To my dismay, it was not even close. I asked more questions and did more sketches of Kailey's hand and ideas I had for a different device. I then went on my way. When school began again on Monday, I was still unsure of what to do and continued brainstorming. I went to talk to my engineering teacher to see if he had any ideas. He did not have any either. We separated ways with no ideas and planned to continue to think about it and see if we could come up with any more ideas.
That is as far as I got with my senior project. The due date of my portfolio arrived and it was time to wrap up my pieces. Although I did not finish my project, I learned a lot from the experience and plan to continue working on providing a hand for Kailey. I hope to be able to provide Kailey with a functional hand before I graduate from high school and no longer have access to the materials that I need for the project. If I reach that goal, I would like to continue to work on improving the hand for Kailey and learning more about prosthetic devices.
I began doing research and the only ideas I could come up with involved making posters and brochures to hang up in a medical office. I turned in my project proposal to the teacher and thought to myself about how lame my project was going to be and contemplated changing my subject. My other subject ideas were definitely easier but they were not as fascinating to me. I decided to continue with my idea and began doing research for my paper. After looking at many different sources about the future of prosthetic devices, I came across one that involved a father making a prosthetic hand for his son with a 3D printer. After reading this article, I knew how I was going to make my project epic!
I started researching more about how I could make my own 3D printed hand and quickly found several different designs. I emailed the company that made the design that I wanted to try to ask them questions about it and possibly get my hands on some of the materials that they used. The company was located in Johannesburg, South Africa and they were not easy to get a hold of. After a couple of weeks of not hearing back from them, I decided to proceed with the hand on my own. I used the 3D printer located in the engineering department at the high school and began to print off pieces. From the instructions about the hand, it looked like building a prosthetic hand would not be a difficult task. However, I was very wrong.
I wanted to make this hand for a girl that I knew that lived in Ennis, Montana named Kailey. I had known her through attending school together and thought that it would be a great opportunity to work with her. She was born with just an index finger and thumb on her left hand and just an index finger on her right hand. I reached out to her mother about what I was wanting to do and asked her if she would be willing to help me. The response that I got was amazing. The family was more than willing to try my idea and was excited that their daughter would possibly have access to a prosthetic device. I told them that I would get back to them within the next few weeks once I had done more research and came up with some ideas. In the end, it took more than a few weeks to contact them again.
I tried to make the first design that I found right away. I printed off all of the pieces and bought all of the tools necessary to assemble it. I was missing only a few things when I began to assemble it but proceeded anyways. The instructions that I used measured everything metrically so I needed to convert all of the measurements in order to buy the necessary drill bits and screws. I got everything as close to the right size as I possibly could but still ran into many issues throughout the construction process. I drilled out the proper holes to adjust the sizing and then began assembling the pieces. After just over six hours, I had the palm and fingers of my hand built. I just had to build the ridges that run along the wrist and thread the cord to make the fingers functional. This is where I ran into my biggest problem. In order to make the ridges that go along the wrist, I needed to find orthoplastic. I thought that I would be able to talk to Treasure State Orthotics and Prosthetics Clinic and they would be able to help me to find the material. They had never heard of it. I spent several hours online searching for it and was unable to find it. I realized that it was time to go back to the drawing board.
I continued to search for more designs on items that would work to build this ridge that would run along the wrist. I needed this part to make tension in the cord which would cause the fingers to close. I found a design that I thought might work and printed that out next. To put things simply, this did not work either. I continued to do more research and found a design for a whole different hand. It had many similarities to my original hand but had ridges that I thought would work. I decided to print off the pieces and start assembling them. Before the pieces had finished printing, I finally got a response from the company which I tried to contact previously since I was using their design. They informed me that the hand that I was trying to make would not work for the girl that I planned to give the hand to. Instead I needed a partial hand. They were not willing to give me the design for this hand and told me that if I wanted it then they could print off the components and put in the necessary material to build the hand. This sounded like a great idea until I got to the part of the email that said that I would have to pay five hundred dollars and the shipping of the product. After receiving this disappointing email, I decided that I was going to design and build my own prosthetic hand.
I began thinking of different possibilities for the prosthetic hand for Kailey. After coming up with some different ideas, I called Kailey’s mother back to get more information. I had her send me pictures of Kailey’s hand and do some basic measurements of her wrist and fingers. When I went to school with Kailey in the past, I didn’t pay very much attention to her hand. All I knew was that she had only two fingers and the rest I assumed to be more like a regular hand. Once I received the pictures, I realized that Kailey did not really have a palm structure and that was something I would have to include in the hand. I took the pictures and measurements to my engineering teacher. We brainstormed several ideas but were not sure which would be best and it found it hard to tell what we should do by just looking at the pictures. We decided that we should try to meet up with Kailey and her mother to get a better look at the hand and some better ideas.
I called them that night, and they informed me that they would be coming in to Bozeman the next day for a doctor’s appointment. They told me that they would have time to come by the school and meet with my engineering teacher and I so we could get some better ideas of what to do. They came to the school and I was able to meet with them for about forty-five minutes to discuss different ideas and take more measurements. After school that day, I drew up the first needed components for the hand on a Computer Animated Design system and got them ready to print. We set the part to print overnight so it would be ready to go the next day.
I came into school the next day and the part was ready to go. By just looking at it, it was hard to tell that it would become a hand. I needed to carve out a lot of parts in order for it fit Kailey’s hand well and become a functional prosthesis. I also still needed to attach fingers and other parts. I realized that I needed to meet with Kailey again to get some more measurements and figure out where and how I needed to carve out the plastic. I was planning to go to Ennis the next day to help my parents clean up some stuff at our storage units so I called Kailey’s mother that night to set up another appointment. This meeting was very short and only lasted about fifteen minutes, but I got enough information to continue proceeding on my project.
I continued working on the device that week. My next step was to file out different parts of the plastic piece in order to contour to her hand. My dad helped me with this step by cutting out part of the hand. We then planned to file around that area to make it smooth and more comfortable for Kailey. This plan turned bad very quickly. When I started to file the plastic, it began to melt. My piece started to look more messy than it originally had, and I realized that I needed a new plan on how to manipulate the piece. I decided to stop for the night and talk to my engineering teacher the next day.
When I talked to my teacher, he told me that we could just use the piece as a rough prototype. I agreed and proceeded with making the hand. I found a design for a piece that I could attach around Kailey’s wrist and then attach to the hand to make the prosthetic functional. I printed that piece off next and continued to make the hand. After a few more hours, I had what I believed could be a functional hand that would work for Kailey. I called her mom that night to try to set up another meeting. However, I learned that I would have to put the hand on hold as the family was going to visit relatives in Maryland.
Once the family returned, I set up an appointment to meet with them and see if the hand would work. To my dismay, it was not even close. I asked more questions and did more sketches of Kailey's hand and ideas I had for a different device. I then went on my way. When school began again on Monday, I was still unsure of what to do and continued brainstorming. I went to talk to my engineering teacher to see if he had any ideas. He did not have any either. We separated ways with no ideas and planned to continue to think about it and see if we could come up with any more ideas.
That is as far as I got with my senior project. The due date of my portfolio arrived and it was time to wrap up my pieces. Although I did not finish my project, I learned a lot from the experience and plan to continue working on providing a hand for Kailey. I hope to be able to provide Kailey with a functional hand before I graduate from high school and no longer have access to the materials that I need for the project. If I reach that goal, I would like to continue to work on improving the hand for Kailey and learning more about prosthetic devices.