Richard van As is recalling the moment in May 2011 when he sat in a Johannesburg hospital waiting to hear if his fingers could be stitched back on. Just an hour earlier, he had been in his carpentry workshop sawing wood when the saw slipped and ripped diagonally through the four fingers on his right hand. “It all happened too quickly to know what actually happened,” he remembers.
Rather than fear the outcome, or dwell on the repercussions of losing his fingers, he was already thinking of ways to fix the problem, like a true carpenter.
After days of scouring the Internet he couldn’t find anywhere to buy a functional prosthetic finger and he was astonished at the cost of prosthetic hands and limbs which began in the tens of thousands of dollars. But his online surfing paid off as it brought him to an amateur video posted by a mechanical effects artist in WashingtonState, by the name of Ivan Owen.
Within five minutes of getting it fitted, people can actually use it.
Together, the pair developed a mechanical finger for van As, but their partnership has also gone on to benefit countless hand and arm amputees around the globe, through the birth of the company “Robohand.”
Officially launched in January 2012, Robohand creates affordable mechanical prosthetics through the use of 3D printers. Not only that, but it has made its designs open source, so that anyone with access to such printers can print out fingers, hands and now arms as well.
“Within five minutes of getting it fitted, people can actually use it,” explains Leonard Nel, the communications manager in the team. “It’s anatomically driven by the wrist, elbow, or shoulder once fitted,” he adds — meaning its movements are controlled by the user.
The first Robohand ever created was made for five-year-old Liam, from South Africa, who was born with amniotic band syndrome (ABS), which left him with no fingers on his right hand. Within minutes of fitting his newly printed mechanical hand Liam beamed excitedly and expressed how he could now “pick up stuff,” describing its movement by saying: “it copies me.”
A full adult hand costs as little as $2,000, takes five and a half hours to print and approximately 10-15 hours to assemble.
