College Kids Make Robotic Arms for Children without Real Ones
College kids make robotic arms for children without real ones.
By the time Cynthia Falardeau read about Alex Pring, a little boy who got a battery-powered robotic arm last summer, she had made peace with her son Wyatt’s limb difference. Her premature baby had been born with his right arm tangled in amniotic bands.
At a week old, doctors amputated his dead forearm and hand. They were afraid his body would be become infected and he would die. Falardeau mourned her boy’s missing arm for years but, in time, embraced her son as he was. Wyatt also learned to adapt. They tried a couple of prosthetics when he was younger and each time the toddler abandoned the false limb within months.
So when a friend shared a story from the “Today Show” with Wyatt in mind, about a team of University of Central Florida (UCF) students and graduates that made an electronic arm for 6-year-old Pring using a three-dimensional printer on campus, Falardeau was defensive.
“He doesn’t need this,” she thought. Her fifth-grader had a different reaction: “I want one of these robot arms!” Falardeau remembers Wyatt telling her and her husband. “I could ride a bike! I might even be able to paddle a kayak!”
The UCF team, which operates a nonprofit called Limbitless Solutions, is special because it’s the only group in the 3-D volunteer network making electronic arms. The UCF project started when Albert Manero, an engineering doctoral student, heard a story on the radio about one of the inventors of the 3-D printed hand. He got involved with E-Nable and met Alex, a local boy teased because of his missing arm, and set about designing a robotic replacement. They gave it to Alex for free.
Category: News Videos, Videos
