UA student project supplies children with 3D printed prosthetic limbs

A group of Alabama students are providing children with prosthetic devices mad with 3-D printers.

A group of University of Alabama students plan to continue a program that supplies children in need with customized prosthetic limbs made using a 3-D printer.

The Alabama Prosthetic Project was begun two years ago by Valerie Levine, a student in the Computer-Based Honors Program at UA. Earlier this year, the group outfitted four children in Georgia with prosthetic devices.

Now, the project plans to work with more recipients and refit the ones they worked with earlier this year. Amanda Flamerich, one of the students involved in the project, called it "truly a humbling experience."

Levine said she began the project in 2016 because of her interest in prosthetic design. Working with 3D printers in the university's chemical engineering research lab, she realized she could combine the interests into one project.

3D printers, also known as additive manufacturing, build a three-dimensional object with the aid of a computer scan of a solid object or a computer-based design. The printers make it easier to design and assemble objects, and faster to produce them.

Levine's idea - produce a free, customized prosthetic hand that children born without a conventional hand, but a functional wrist, can use. The prosthetic can then be tailored to the child's wrist movement, palm characteristics and  switched out as the child grows.

Levine adapted an open-source design that was created with the individual children in mind for comfort. The hands are muscle-driven, meaning no motorized or electrical components were used. All the children, aged seven to 11, only needed a functional wrist for the hands to work.

"When I first found out that Valerie was initiating this project, I was really amazed," Flamerich said. "We had 3D printers in our lab, and it was neat to see them used for good."

"One of the best parts of the Alabama Prosthetic Project is that the designs for the prosthetic hand are continuously updated and modified to improve the devices," Levine said. "Nothing is ever perfect, and so it is important that we never stop improving upon our designs."

The process from beginning to first fitting took seven months, Levine said. The project's four undergraduate members - Levine, Flamerich, Adam Benabbou and Kaitlin Burnash - also worked with orthopedic surgeons, physical therapists and prosthetists at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Children's of Alabama.

The first fittings came in February of this year.

"Being able to see them use their hands, pick up objects, hold their mothers' hands, it was so amazing to see the joy in their eyes," Flamerich said. "It was a really incredible experience. I feel really grateful for that."

The project is also entering its work in the Lemelson-MIT Program, which recognizes collegiate inventors whose work could impact the global economy.

A film of the fittings can be viewed here.

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