Daddy made my arm with a 3D printer!
WHEN his son was forced to have his left arm amputated just days after birth, Ben Ryan was devastated. Doctors told the first time father it would be a year before baby Sol could be fitted with a plastic prosthetic arm, and another three before he could wear an electric one which moved. So, the father decided to build a baby bionic arm himself. The former psychology lecturer quit his job and designed and made his own prototype using an Xbox 3D scanner and a 3D printer. He devised a simple fluid pressure pad that is ‘squashed’ by Sol’s elbow bone. The fluid is sent down a pipe into a bellow that operates a lever and opens the finger and thumb grip. The technology is battery free and the plastic arm can be entirely built by a 3D printer. Mr Ryan, 40, said: ‘Sol was our first baby, so to be told he had to have his arm amputated at ten days old was terrible, we were in a very black place. I kept thinking he would never be able to box or play guitar – all the things I had done as a kid.
‘The doctors said it would be a year before he could be fitted with a passive prosthetic limb, then he would have to be three or four before he could have an electric one he could control.
‘For me, that was just not good enough, I thought I could do better for my son.’
Mr Ryan’s partner, Kate
‘Thought I could do better for my son’
Smith, 38, had a difficult labour with Sol. He was born in March 2015 with his left arm over his head and developed a blood clot above his elbow, which forced surgeons to amputate it.
When Sol was just five weeks old, Mr Ryan, from Menai Bridge, Anglesey, began fashioning make- shift arms from sponge and cotton wool.
‘By encouraging him to use both arms during this period of early brain development, we believed Sol would become more likely to adopt prosthetics later on,’ he said.
After working with bits of copper pipe and plumbing fittings, Mr Ryan came up with an idea and asked staff at Bangor University to help him build it using a 3D printer.
Sol, who is almost two, wears his father’s design occasionally, but will not wear it permanently until it has been fully trialled. The rest of the time he wears a plastic one issued by the NHS. However, unlike Mr Ryan’s design, it does not move.
Mr Ryan has since set up his own prosthetics Ambionics.
‘For me the driving force has always been Sol,’ Mr Ryan said. ‘He is nearly two now and loves reading books, but even doing something as simple as turning a page is difficult because the book slides off his knee.
‘Having a bionic arm will allow him to grip the book, it’s that simple ... I know this prosthetic has the potential to revolutionise the lives of millions of children and babies born without limbs in the future.’