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Katelyn Vincik's parents said their daughter was born with a left hand that was not fully formed. While Katelyn has always known her left hand was a little different than her right, it has not slowed her down.
"She's very determined, she does everything," said Kimberly Vincik. "It's never held her back."
[...] Katelyn has been on a waiting list for more than a year for a functional prosthetic. "It has not been FDA-approved. It's basically tied up in approval and legal," said Katelyn's father, Casey.
Her parents said Katelyn was offered a cosmetic prosthetic hand, but the little girl found it too heavy and generally disliked the way it looked.
[...] Determined to find a hand for Katelyn, the family drove from Victoria to Clear Lake and met with Branch Librarian Jim Johnson and Innovation Lab trainer Patrick Ferrell.
"We let them know we don't know anything about prosthetics. We've never done this before. We just know how to run a 3-D printer," said Ferrell. The fact the lab never printed a hand didn't stop Ferrell and a team of volunteers from diving into the project.
[...] The Vinciks said Katelyn took to her new hand like she'd had it all her life. Kimberly Vincik said some of Katelyn's first words after receiving the hand were directed to her younger sister, Lacey.
"(She said) 'Lacey, we can hold hands now,'" Vincik said.
The polylactic acid material used to make Katelyn's hand was even dyed in Katelyn's favorite colors: pink and purple. The prosthetic attaches to Katelyn's arm and a pulley system opens and closes the hand when Katelyn bends her arm.
Pretty amazing stuff these days eh?
Here's a link to the library: http://www.hcpl.net/content/jocelyn-h-lee-innovation-lab-0
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:13AM
So this is an uplifting story, but also a tale of how the future will be ruled by bureaucracy and big biz.
I did my first 3D printing this month, and I have to say for all the shortcomings, it is pretty amazing.
So now we are all just waiting for the 100 year copyright/patent train to make it impossible to 3D print something useful.
In medical applications, imagine the huge amount of benefit to having bespoke designs for everyone?
I'm trying to personalise medicines, so about time we made other things personal!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:33AM
I highly doubt 3D printer DRM will go anywhere past the joke stage.
If your "stolen" design or gun parts get censored off of Thingiverse, it will just be put on The Pirate Bay or Freenet or whatever.
A bigger issue will be the labor and surgical costs associated with parts more complicated than a hand. Like a trachea. Lots of people could have printed this hand.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @01:15AM
bespoke designs for everyone?
Bespoke Fucks - Hire a fucksmith, sir? [oglaf.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @11:43PM
> So this is an uplifting story, but also a tale of how the future will be ruled by bureaucracy and big biz.
My panasonic microwave has a design defect. One of the latches is mounted on a flimsy piece of sheet metal that eventually bends too far out for the latch to close completely. Since the latch is part of the fail-safe to operate the microwave, that is a pretty big problem. It is a well known problem affecting lots of panasonic models, there are lots of threads about it around the net. There is also a bracket on thingiverse that you can print out for about 10 cents and super-glue in place to hold the sheet metal steady.
I printed it out and it worked great. But that thingiverse page is not high in the google hits for any mention of the latch problem, it took me months of occasional searches before I discovered it.
So I tried to post messages about it on the discussion forums that are the top hits for the latch problem. All of them censored my posts and deleted the URL. I was not selling anything or promoting anything, just telling my story and providing a link to the free thingiverse page with the 3d model that can be freely printed on basically any 3d printer. You don't even need to create an account on thingiverse in order to download it. I even got into a debate with the mods on the biggest site and they told me tough shit and that if I wanted to tell anyone where to find the printable model, I could do it through a private message. When I mentioned that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow I would be unable to respond to PM's, they deleted that message.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @01:38AM
You'll show those fuckers you mean business when you send off emails using the free web-mail service known as HORSEFUCKER.ORG!
It's true, it's free: http://www.horsefucker.org/ [horsefucker.org]
The weak minded will surrender to your power and sign up for their own spot at HorseFucker.org!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @01:45AM
polylactic acid not polylatic acid
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:09AM
Basically, the hi-tech hi-dollar industry was only able to offer a POS that the kid hated. Some amateurs managed to make something real enough that the kid liked it. I like it. We need to encourage this kind of creativity.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:25AM
She can check out the hand for 3 weeks, with 2 renewals. Then she has to turn it in and haunt the library until it shows up on the shelves again.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:44AM
You just reminded me that I still have books that were never returned. One of them from my hometown library, more than 40 years ago. The funny thing about that one is, I never could find it, and I offered to pay for it. The librarian wouldn't accept payment, insisted that I go home and search for the book some more. Fines continued to accumulate, I couldn't find the book, never did return it. Years later, I found the damned book, but now the library didn't want their book back!
So, I suggest that she just the hand out, and never return to that library.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:44AM
So, I suggest that she just [check] the hand out, and never return to that library.
Just mail them back the middle finger.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @09:34AM
If this is just about looks, I'm not cheering. While I realize that any visually obvious handicap in the modern world is very nasty where perfection is the par for the course. But this is something we should strive to change, reality is not perfect.
If it actually helps her to do things, then it's marvelous and I'm all for it. Also, this is where 3d printing shines, custom odd jobs that require unique features and thus can not be mass produced.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday August 20 2016, @09:36PM
The hand does function. In a few of the photos she is shown holding things with it.
In other cases, not only are the printed hands 1000 times cheaper (literally) , they provide more function than the expensive approved prosthetics.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @11:47PM
I realize that any visually obvious handicap in the modern world is very nasty where perfection is the par for the course. But this is something we should strive to change, reality is not perfect.
You worry about changing that. Any argument that this girl should not be given something that helps her with self-esteem and to not be picked on is bullshit. Its not her job to fix the world. You are the one complaining, you go fix it.
(Score: 2) by steveha on Thursday August 25 2016, @06:27PM
The article doesn't say, but I'll bet you the hand opens and closes. Take a look at this, which shows a guy wearing a 3D printed hand. The video shows him opening and closing his fingers. He said that for most purposes it works better than his $42,000 motorized one.
https://3dprint.com/2438/50-prosthetic-3d-printed-hand/ [3dprint.com]
Note: $50 refers to the cost of goods; if the people working on the hand had charged for their time, it must have cost a few thousand bucks. I'm sure that the $42K number is not just cost of goods, but total cost, covering the salaries of all the people who worked on it, and a profit for the company, and the regulatory burdens of complying with US government regulations. Nonetheless, the $50 prosthetic hand is a really big deal.
We aren't at the true cyborg stage with these devices. The fingers don't individually move according to the wishes of the person. It's a simple mechanical thing: move the arm the correct way and the fingers open, move it the correct other way and the fingers close. The one in the video above works by moving the wrist. Not as good as a real hand but still useful.
This sort of prosthesis works much better when the person has more of their arm. People who lost their arm above the elbow can't have such a simple prosthesis, but even there people are working on low-cost hacks to solve the problem. Here's one:
https://3dprint.com/90944/3d-printed-elbow-prosthetic/ [3dprint.com]
(Score: 2) by steveha on Thursday August 25 2016, @06:35PM
The article doesn't say much about how the little girl's new hand works, but if you watch the video at the top of the news story (the click2houston.com link) you can see her opening and closing the fingers on her new hand. So there you go, it's functional.