3D Printed Prosthetic Hand

Summary

What are you going to build? What does it do? Why are you excited to build it?

For our winter project, we are going to build a 3d printed prosthetic hand. The hand will include parts for the joints of the fingers, the palms, and the thumb. The hand will feature opening and closing, and will have opportunity for more features due to the construction. We want to build this hand because it is a very lightweight, affordable solution for people with disabilities. Because it is 3d printed, it takes very minimal resources to create and is very adaptable. This product could be sold at a very cheap price to low income individuals as well as regular people.

Plan

What steps are you going to take to build it?

1. First we are going to collect the arduino, servos, battery pack, wires, and high strength wire.
2. Then we’ll print the hand segments and all the plastic parts
3. We’ll put the hand together and put the servos, battery inside
4. We’ll connect everything with the wire
5. We’ll link up the impulse sensors
6. We’ll use arduino to code the servo movements with the sensors

The construction of the hand is like this:

1. The hand consists of 1 palm piece and 1 piece for the top.
2. Each finger is consisting of 3 individual “joints”. The thumb also consits of these joint pieces.
3. The joint pieces are connected by fishing line. When you pull the fishing line, the hand comes together.
4. One of the servos is used for the 4 fingers. We pull fishing line through each finger, and then tie that together into one node. The servo controls that node, pulling all 4 fingers at once.
5. The second servo controls the thumb, using fishing line.
6. The end product is a hand that attaches to your wrist. It has impulse sensors connecting to the forearm.

What tools are you going to use?

To build the project, we’ll use a 3d printer, pliers, soldering iron, screwdriver, a needle, a scraper.

Budget

What materials will you need for your project? Where will you get them? How much does it cost? Please include all materials, including components you already own. Make sure to factor in shipping costs and sales tax.