The e-NABLE community has produced some pretty amazing things. What’s grown from helping one child in need has gone on to see people risking their lives to get prosthetics to people in developing countries and even turning children into superheroes.
Recently, e-NABLE has been working on its growing collection of wrist activated designs and just a few days ago, an e-NABLE volunteer helped a young boy named Alex by giving him his very own 3D printed ‘Helper arm’. In just a few short days e-Nable has posted a video of Alex putting his elbow to the test playing tennis, pool and ping pong.
Alex has a congenital RBE (Right arm, below elbow) limb difference meaning his “little arm” ends two inches below the elbow. When his parents saw a video of the e-NABLE RIT Derek Arm in August this year, they got in touch with e-NABLE who enlisted volunteer Nick Morris to print an arm for Alex. Nick printed the pieces, put them together and took them apart so the family could put the arm together themselves.
On the e-NABLE blog, Nick talks about why he decided to volunteer with e-NABLE: “Being involved with e-NABLE allowed me to meet a great family that wanted the same thing – to make a better life for their son. This experience really has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.”
Alex’s arm was created by scanning a plaster cast provided by his family along with photos and measurements to get an accurate fit.
On the blog, Alex’s mum says: “Many kids with upper limb differences find currently-available prosthetic devices “clunky and uncomfortable” and most don’t run across a whole lot they CAN’T do. They find a way! But we were intrigued enough by the possibilities of the RIT arm and especially the e-NABLE community, that we decided to join up and see what a growing group of volunteers might accomplish.”
The e-NABLE RIT Arm design is still in the beginning stages of development and there are over 2000 dedicated volunteers working on improving this life changing design to make it comfortable, safe and useful.
