Hands up for better lives, aided by 3D printers
Grade 8 students at Monterey Middle School got a real-life lesson in how technology can improve people’s lives, courtesy of the Victoria Hand Project.
The Victoria Hand Project started using 3D printers to build low-cost customized prosthetic hands less than three years ago. Since then, it has fitted 70 people in Nepal, Guatemala, Ecuador, Haiti, Cambodia and Egypt who would otherwise go without.
The project operates out of a biomedical design lab at the University of Victoria.
Alex Burden, a designer with the project, said it’s important to let students know what technology can do.
“We do these outreach projects now just to excite them about 3D design, but to hopefully get them also involved,” he said.
“There’s so much enthusiasm here that it’s great to be able to connect them with a project like ours or any charitable work, to try to make a difference.”
The students are part of a class known as the Monterey Institute of Technology, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Teacher Josh Elsdon said it is for students interested in topics such as computer programming, robotics and 3D design.
“All of the kids here have earned their way to this workshop by mastering some the 3D design skills that we’re looking at.”
Hearing from people with direct involvement in the field serves a good purpose, Elsdon said.
“It’s so important to have these community connections, not just to see adults that are working in this area, but also ways that people are using technology to make the world a better place, so that we see technology not just as something that’s made for entertainment or fun, but also for helping people and also for making things that are beautiful and artistic.”
Student Francheska Gonzales was impressed with the visitors. “The things that they do actually make a change in the world.”
Monterey has a 3D printer that students have used to make a variety of items, Elsdon said. “We’ve had everything from toys to Christmas gifts to Father’s Day presents to actual problemsolving objects that were made.”
The Victoria Hand Project partners with clinics in impoverished communities to set up a print centre with a 3D printer, a 3D scanner and other supplies and equipment. It trains local technicians to use the machines, which print out a custom socket and prosthetic made of a bioplastic called PLA, or polylactic acid. The hand has an adaptive grasp and movable thumb and is activated by a shoulder harness.
The cost, which includes prosthetists and technicians, is about $300, a fraction of the usual $2,000 to $3,000 cost of a conventional prosthesis.
The group is in the running to win $750,000 as one of 10 finalists in the Impact Challenge contest, run by Google.org, Google’s charitable arm. All finalists are assured of $250,000, but the top five votegetters will be given $750,000.
Winning the money would allow the project to help another 750 people and expand its work to five more yet-to-be-named countries, Burden said.
Other finalists include the Canadian Red Cross, Food Banks Canada and the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation.
To vote, go to impactchallenge.withgoogle.com/canada2017.
Voting closes March 28.