Here’s a project that is striving to develop a set of open source finger prosthesis. They are aimed at patients who have partial amputations. This means that part of the digit remains and can be used as the motive force behind a well designed mechanical prosthesis like you see above. This uses levers, pulleys, and wire to move a gripper in much the same way the pad of a pointer finger works. There’s even a video (embedded after the jump) which shows it being used to grab a toothpick from a dispenser… pretty impressive. This is similar to the prosthesis we saw in August which managed to work without pulleys and wire.
This isn’t limited to fingers. The same posts that shows off the unit seen above also includes a prosthetic thumb. The leverage for that design is provided by a woven nylon strap which attaches to a bracelet on the wrist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkmHfT_rDf8
[Thanks Michael]
Very cool! I always enjoy seeing very directed and useful builds.
Yikes! What’s happened to his hand? Frostbite? Industrial accident?
Nice build. I wonder if it can be extended to provide multiple fingers.
Circular saw accident
Correction: Table Saw
lots of posts involving fingers these last weeks.
This is outstanding. Simple engineering solving a complex problem. Amazing.
This is similar in concept to the X-Finger device. Check it out on YouTube. Someone needs to come up with an open source, 3D-printable version of that thing because currently it costs $40k-$60k. Medical companies are horrible.
Yeah, that is great…It would be a nice project for one of the graduation experiments for the mechanical engineering department here.
Any idea on what the cost is?