14 DAY TRIAL // Cleft hands aren't exactly encouraging when you're part of a species with hands and feet that each have five fingers or toes. Fortunately, prosthetics have the answer.
A group of high school students from Texas have designed a prosthetic hand that will give the two-year-old boy his missing fingers.
They won't be as good as the real thing, but still should be a lot better than the alternative.
And in this case, the alternative is making do with just the thumb and pinkie on the left hand (that's what cleft hand means, unfortunately).
3D printing technology was used by the three high schoolers to produce the prosthetic.
First, they took the adult prosthetic model found by the child's mother. Then, they took the measurements of the boy and made adjustments to the model in CAD (computer-aided design) software.
That done, they used a 3D printer to make the model into a physical thing, from plastic.
Score another point for 3D printing technology, even though the prosthetic will become too small in a fairly short time. Adjustments shouldn't be impossible to implement though, and it's not like printing totally new replacements for it in the future is out of the question.
