When Richard Van As, a master carpenter in Johannesburg, South Africa, decided to make a set of mechanical fingers, it wasn’t just for fun. He’d lost four of the fingers on his right hand in an unfortunate work accident. For a tradesman like Rich, having a disabled hand is a big professional detriment, so Richard decided on the day of his the incident that he would use the tools available to him to remedy his situation. Watch the inspiring video above to hear how Richard’s project, Robohand, is changing lives with patience, spirit, and a MakerBot Replicator 2.

Getting Started

MakerBot heard about the Robohand project in January 2013. Richard had been trading ideas with Ivan Owen, a collaborator in Washington State, for several months. Ivan used his prior experience with mechanical prop hands to make design suggestions, while Richard attempted to replicate the designs in his workshop.

The process was taking weeks and months per cycle. For us here at MakerBot, that was too much wasted time. We knew our 3D printer, the MakerBot Replicator 2, could take this important work to new heights. We saw their collaboration and the work they were doing as groundbreaking, and we asked Ivan and Richard to accept a donation from us: a MakerBot Replicator 2 for each of them, one in Washington, and another in South Africa.

If the tool was useful to them, we hoped they would share their work on Thingiverse.com for the world to download. It turns out the MakerBots were incredibly useful, and the guys have followed through on their promise. Just hours after they received their packages from us here in Brooklyn, the two collaborators were sharing files back and forth, testing the design in one place and doing another iteration on the other side of the world. Richard says it took the prototyping process down from weeks to just 20 minutes.

But that’s only half the story.

Giving A Hand

Robohand has grown far beyond the goal of making a set of fingers just for Richard. When the power of desktop 3D printing and MakerBot entered the picture, Richard began to realize how quickly he could refine a design for other people who have lost their fingers, or who were born without fingers. After posting his own story, he received emails and Facebook messages from parents whose children were candidates for a Robohand of their own. One of these children was five-year-old Liam.

The condition Amniotic Band Syndrome is poorly understood, but the effects of it are pretty clear. Children are often born without extremities, especially fingers and toes, when fibrous bands in the womb prevent these parts from developing normally. It’s this condition that caused Liam to be born with no fingers on his right hand. The cost of purchasing a traditional prosthesis was far too much for the family, especially since Liam is a young and fast growing boy who would outgrow a prosthesis in a few months.

Liam was given a Robohand just days after Richard and Ivan received their MakerBots in January, 2013, and he has already been fitted for his second. The word spread, and other kids in the Johannesburg area like Liam with Amniotic Band Syndrome have received their own Robohands, sized just for them. The files, including the assembly instructions, have been posted online at Thingiverse, and they have been downloaded over 3,800 times by people around the globe.

What Is A Robohand?

A Robohand is a set of mechanical fingers that open and close to grasp things based on the motion of the wrist. When the wrist folds and contracts, the cables attaching the fingers to the base structure cause the fingers to curl. Nearly all the parts of a Robohand are 3D printed on MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D printers.

Ivan, who played a big part in the initial design stages of Robohand, says he studied the anatomy of crab legs and human fingers to get the basic muscle and tendon structure. The result is a simple assembly that Richard believes anyone can make themselves. While a full set of prosthetic fingers may cost thousands of dollars, all of the Robohand parts that are made on the MakerBot Replicator 2 add up to roughly a few dollars in material cost, with the total mechanical hand costing around $150 (USD).

Who Needs A Robohand?

Amniotic Band Syndrome affects 1 in 1,200 live births.

About 80% of cases of Amniotic Band Syndrome involve the loss or malformation of fingers and hands.

Finger amputations are the most common amputation in the US, accounting for over 90% of all amputations, according to various reports.

How Do I Get A Robohand?

Robohand was not imagined as a service or a product. Instead, Richard has shared the design files and instructions for creating a Robohand on Thingiverse so that people around the world can download, customize, print, and assemble Robohands for themselves or for others.

So far, we’ve heard stories of Robohands being made for children and adults in the US, Canada, and Thailand. Are you a MakerBot owner who can give this incredible gift to someone in your community?

Get Involved

There’s still a lot to be done. Richard has given hands-on help to a few of the people within his reach, but Robohand needs your help in order to get to the people who need it most.

● Want to spread the word? Share this video with your friends on Twitter or Facebook.
● Looking to to support the cause? Check out Robohand’s Indiegogo campaign.
● Are you an occupational therapist or prosthetist? Leave a comment below!

Make a Robohand

The design files and assembly instructions for Robohand can be found on Thingiverse.

Robohand’s creators would like to empower others around the world to use their files and create and print in 3D Robohands of their own, and they are not in the mechanical hand business. They created Robohand out of the goodness of their heart. Now it’s time to provide the files to the world and see what other good can come from them!

Robohand uses the following tools to make their mechanical hands:

● MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer
● MakerBot PLA Filament
● Stainless steel hardware
● Thermo-forming orthoplastic
● Elastic bands
● Nylon cable

The full bill of materials is listed here.

Ahead of the Maker Faire UK this weekend in Newcastle (April 27/28) Printcraft mastermind Paul Harter has just released his latest version of his Minecraft server with a ton of new features.

With over a 100 virtual build platforms on his multi-player Minecraft server, users can claim a build platform and start designing 3D printable objects using standard Minecraft tools and resources. Anyone with a Minecraft account can login to us1.printcraft.org (us) or eu1.printcraft.org (Europe) and start creating their own designs.

Once you create your Minecraft creation, place a sign down on the virtual build platform and name your model. Then head over to the signpost and hit the Print button. Your model will be transformed into a standard STL file format and a unique URL will be given to the user to open in a web browser. Visiting the link will allow you to download the file as well as easily upload the 3D design to your Thingiverse account (using our developer API).

Millions of Minecraft users can now use their design skills in-game to build, share and 3D print their creations. The possibilities are endless and we can’t wait to see what folks share to the MakerBot Thingiverse community.

Head on over to

http://www.thingiverse.com/Printcraft

and start crafting your own 3D printable designs!

Here’s a great tip for every MakerBot user: use MakerWare’s Helper Disks to keep the corners of your model from curling up. 

Thingiverse users ctheroux and whpthomas have been great advocates for using Helper Disks, which act like feet on the corners of your model to help keep everything pinned down. When the MakerBot Slicing Engine sees the disks, it treats them as part of the model. Once the print is finished, the disks can be peeled or cut away pretty easily.

Below is a quick step-by-step for using these little lifesavers. Try Helper Disks out and share your experience with us in the comments below or on twitter: @makerbot.

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently discovered a YouTube channel called “Numberphile” where a documentary filmmaker Brady Haran does a series of short interviews and clips with different mathematicians and physicists about numbers.  Since my short description simply does not do this series justice – please take a few minutes and watch this recent video of theirs about how Richard Feyman defeated every government safe in Los Alamos.

Many of the videos in this series feature James Grime, a mathematician who recently invented a new kind of non-transitive dice as well as several games you can play with them.  That is, several games you can play with them and always win.  Non-transitive dice are designed in such a way that the first die will always tend to beat the second, the second will always tend to beat the third, and the third will always tend to beat the first.  Efron dice designed by American statistician Brad Efron and feature the same “circular pattern of victory” – but with four dice.  Grime dice by Numberphile star Professor James Grime feature five dice which have a similar ”circular pattern of victory” with additional interesting properties.

Encouraged by Professor Grime’s infectious enthusiasm, I designed three sets of printable non-transitive dice (three non-transitive dice, four Efron dice, and five Grime dice) which you can print on your MakerBot at home – either as dice where you color in the pips or which you can print with dualstrusion.

By the way, my favorite part from any of these videos is where Professor Grime talks about how he thought up these dice in his mind, and now they occupy a real physical place in the world since he had them created.  This video includes a refrain any Thingiverse citizen is familiar with…  ”I made a thing!”

(Also, please don’t use these dice for evil.  Remember that with great power, comes great responsibility.)

Hey, we recognize that face!

This Wall Street Journal slide show has a cover photo of a really nice bust being printed on a MakerBot Replicator 2. It’s so good that when we put it on our Facebook page, the MakerBot Sales guys immediately noticed it’s the head of none other than our good friend Alexander Hafner, getting some attention at the CeBIT conference in Germany. The company Hafner’s Büro is a rockstar distributor for MakerBot.

Lookin’ good, Axel!

 

Okay, we all read about the 3D printed key to open up handcuffs. Let’s shift the conversation, eh? What can a MakerBot do for your personal security?

There is an amazing series of lock mechanisms on Thingiverse, the latest appearing today from ttsalo (at the bottom of this post). A couple months ago, we all benefited from this Pin Tumbler Lock from atartanian. You should know that this lock is based on Thing-O-Fun’s Functional Pin Tumbler Lock Model, but it’s huge, like way bigger than any lock would need to be. Maybe you’re making an Alice in Wonderland playset with giant doors. Who knows?

 

The notes on the Thingiverse page say that IWorkInPixels plans to upload the OpenSCAD file so that we can make not just this lock, but also custom locks for ourselves.

More recently, user ttsalo in Finland started sharing designs for other locks. Here is one for a Lever Tumbler Lock.

 

In the video here, you can (just barely) see the bar at the base of the mechanism sliding in and out as the key is turned back and forth. With the right settings, and , that would be a pretty strong lock. Ttsalo didn’t stop there. Here’s a Fully Printable Padlock. On the Thingiverse page, he provides a lot of explanation about how to file and sand down certain elements of the whole mechanism make a fluid mechanism.

 

And now, for the pièce de résistance — no really, resistance — a Lockbox. What would fit in this? An engagement ring, maybe?

 

 

Here’s a great review of some things that have been made with 3D printing devices, focusing on items that are much easier to achieve with a 3D printer than with traditional manufacturing. The list includes several hot items on Thingiverse. Our friend George Hart also gets a well-deserved shoutout for his impressive trailblazing on machines like The Replicator.

 

What will our electronics look like when we are each making the manufacturing decisions for our own gadgets? And when you only need to make the one that you like, not one that ten million people will like?

That’s the question posed by Peter Krige, Alexander du Preez, and Hannes Harms at the Royal College of Art in London.¹  Their O.System concept is like an online mix-and-match catalog of electronic components that you manufacture individually — with 3D printing — to suit your needs.

Here’s how they see the process working:

In this system, people select their electronic products online. They can then visit their local O.Store to talk to the technician about the purchase and add personal touches. O.Products can constantly evolve through update cards in the post, while old electronic cards are sent back for re-manufacture or recycling.

 

Like Creative Applications writes, the idea that you just make an updated card or other component and send your old one back helps address the problem of electronics becoming obsolete. This sounds like the customized 3D-printed robots project from MIT’s CSAIL, and also like Bobby Genalo’s Art Phones project.

The world is really starting to think in terms of individual, on-demand products. Cool. But what is the role of the industrial designer? Do we all have it in us to think about user experience? Where’s the middle ground for people who really do just want products off the shelf?

 

1. double checked the spelling of these names [↩]

So here’s what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna make a big light panel of some of your faces. Go to the ashow.zefrank.com page and look for the lightwall face mission and upload a picture of your face. Just your face on a plain background and try not to have any expression on your face. Look innocent.

I’m also going to ask you to include a short sentence of one thing that you hope for in the next year, 32 characters or less.

Enjoy the video and be a part of this cool exhibit!

 

 

There is still time to enroll your child in a very important learning opportunity, and good news: the price has dropped and the eligibility has expanded!

NYU Poly’s Center for K-12 STEM Education and MakerBot are combining powers to get kids introduced to 3D modeling and 3D printing. This is an excellent chance to give them a leg up with a set of skills that will become very advantageous in the near future.

Here are the details:

Where: NYU-Poly Campus
6 MetroTech Center
Brooklyn, NY
Room RH 214

When: July 9th-13th, 2012 from 9am to 3pm daily

Who: Ages 10-13

Cost:  $500 $400/student (includes a lunch voucher good in our cafeteria)

Email [email protected] to find out more.

Click here to sign up!