HANDS

A few months ago I was made aware of an organization called E-nablingthefuture.org. It is a group of people who want to help children particularly who have been born with no limbs to have hands made by 3d printers . 

Cindy originally drew my attention to it but I was not interested at the time. That planted a seed though. I read an on-line article in the HuffPost sometime later and I became intrigued. The article included a link to a website and from there I was able to read about this organization. 

Here is what I found: 
"E-NABLE is a growing group of over 1500 members who have come together from all over the World to help create and design 3D Printed assistive hand devices for those in need.
We are engineers, artists, makers, students, parents, occupational therapists, prosthetists, garage tinkerers, designers, teachers, creatives, philanthropists, writers and many others – who are devoting our “Free time” to the creation of open source designs for mechanical hand assistive devices that can be downloaded and 3D printed for less than $50 in materials.
Our designs are open source – so that anyone, anywhere – can download and create these hands for people who may need them and so that others can take these designs and improve upon them and once again share with the World in a “Pay it Forward” type of way."

I sent an email to that organization asking if I was too old to be a part of this and they wrote back saying that no you're never too old. He sent me a link to a video clip of a 70 year old man receiving one. He had never used a prosthetic before. 

A few weeks later I received the following email from them:

Hi Scott!

I just wanted to let you know that you have been matched with a volunteer who will be assisting you.  Jennifer is part of a school program which is making hands for several of our recipients.  You will receive a email from them in the near future but I would think it will at very least be after Thanksgiving.  If you have heard from them by the end of next week, please let me know and I'll check in with them to make sure there aren't any email issues.  

If you have any questions at all, just send me a quick email and I'll be happy to help!

ᐧ

Melina Brown

e-NABLE Matching Coordinator

That sure sounded exciting to me. At the same time I heard from about that match-up I was contacted by David Maulik, a man who lived right here in Riverton. He said he had signed up with this organization about a year and a half ago and was ready to work with me. David didn't think that the odds of him finding somebody in Wyoming were very high. So when he found out about me he was shocked. Not only was he able to find somebody in Wyoming but also in his hometown. Apparently I had met him before although I don't remember it. I informed David that I would love to work with him but that I have been paired up with a school group. So he contacted the organization and told them about the match up and this is their response:

Hi David,

Scott was actually assigned to a school program so we would like to keep him with them so we don't interfere with any of their plans already set into motion with their classroom.   However, I would have no problem with you making him a hand as well.  I think it would be great for him to test drive two different designs and give his feedback.  I think having the perspective of the different age groups would be greatly beneficial to future projects. I think maybe try a Talon since the school will most likely be making a Raptor or a Cyborg Beast.  Let me know what you think. 

Thank you for bringing clarity to the situation, it can be a bit difficult at times to make sure everyone goes through the process so we can maintain records.  :) If you would like to move forward with Scott, we can forward his photos to you for use in Tracker.  

Thank you again!

So I guess how we move from here is up to you. My offer still stands I would be willing to make you any device you want but as Melina says the students will probably want to make you a Raptor hand or Cyborg Beast. A Talon may be a good option as an alternative, but we could also make you the Raptor and the students could make the cyborg beast or vice-a-versa its all up to you. I would like to make you a second hand especially if it is one of the less common designs because there aren't a large number of adult users or at least there aren't many that seem to be active on the Google+ group and if you would be willing to be a "guinea pig" it may be beneficial to the community as a whole.

Thanks,

David Maulik

Just yesterday I met with David. We looked at what he had already done and then talked about where we will go from here. He showed me a model he had already printed. Wow! This is exciting. I have to choose my colors now and then once what he needs arrives he will let me know so that we can go out to the printer in Fort Washakie. 

Last week sometime I Skyped with the school group I am matched with that is from the University of Albany in New York. There are about 12 people in the class. I introduced myself to the class and told them a few things about myself. Over the course of the next couple of weeks they will be making six hands. I don't know whether that means one of them is mine or what they have in mind. The professor said that she would post pictures in Facebook of what they are doing. 

So it looks like I will be getting two different hands. What can I say.

The following are examples of three different designs. Mine will be a different color.

The pink one is called the Cyborg Beast. I think that one is the coolest looking. The seconded one is call The Raptor. The black one is called The Talon and is the most durable and most challenging hand to make and assemble. It is possible the class may make a Talon.

My wrist action will cause the fingers to close on an object. I could have used a second hand yesterday when I was installing a new dishwasher. Most of the time everything is just fine. Sometimes though having two fully functioning hands would be nice.

The challenge is to make the hand comfortable. It will have to be custom fitted to my arm both in length and width. It should be interesting.