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Mainframe Bloke [soylentnews.org] writes:

A retrenched engineer, lately of carmaker Toyota, has used his redundancy payout to make his own 3D fabrication plant, and now creates prosthetics to order for free. He doesn't even charge postage to send them to their recipients.

See this story for more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-23/retrenched-engineer-makes-3d-prosthetic-limbs-for-free/10418050. [abc.net.au]

An excerpt:

"He splurged his redundancy payout on 3D printers and set up shop in his "man cave" on Phillip Island, 150 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, designing and making cheap prosthetic limbs.

Mr Bowtell, 38, said his lightbulb moment occurred in 2004 when he was studying mechatronics with Monash University on a scholarship in Japan.

"I tried on a $1 million bionic arm and I just thought 'Wow, this is really, really fantastic technology, but who on earth is going to be able to afford it?'" he said."

He accepts orders, including custom colours, for the prosthetics, which are mainly hands and fingers at this stage.

Wish I had the chops to do that. Very commendable use of one's resources. Might be time for some experimentation...it doesn't say how much it all cost him, but crowdfunding seems actually to have some good uses after all...here's a link to one of his pages if you've got some spare cash (no, I'm not a shill, just an interested observer):

https://helpinghand.ecwid.com/ [ecwid.com]

PS...all his designs are Open Source. Just searching bowtell prosthetics brings up quite a list, the ABC were a bit late to the story, so sorry if you've already heard it...

Original Submission