3D Printed Spiderhand

[Brian_Krassenstein]

Lehigh University student Joshua Levy has participated in their Mountaintop Program for two summers in a row. This summer, he continued work he had done with his research team into the creation of assistive devices for people with impaired mobility in their hands. Calling his creation The Spiderhand, he has had the help of a soccer teammate who suffered a spinal injury. Through a process of printing, testing, redesigning, and printing he has developed a prototype which he has shared on Thingiverse. Read more about Levy's design in the full article: http://3dprint.com/83807/spiderhand-mobility-assist/


Below is a photo of the 3D printed Spiderhand:

[njburns]

Hi Daniel, I am very interested in creating a working version of the Spiderhand.
We have full UG NX CAD and 3D printing facilities and would like to try developing one for our work colleague who had a bike accident three months ago, fractured his spinal cord and now has very restricted movement. He can only move his arms but not his fingers.
I also have another friend whose hands and digits were deformed after they were immersed in boiling water as a child, and now has restricted finger movement.
Both would welcome any mechanism that could restore some finger movement.
Any assistance appreciated, Nigel

[Dlevy]

Sure, The mechanism works by moving the wrist up and down, so if your friends have wrist motion then the device will work.

Here are 2 links to the hardware:
2 bags of these http://www.mcmaster.com/#92735a110/=xv4dwy
4 of these http://www.mcmaster.com/#8420k11/=xv497i

you can print the adjustable rods using a 3D printer, but they are not very sturdy and they often don't thread well.

As for the sizing of the fingers (the collars) I have a bunch of sizes on file, but only uploaded the sizing of my hand, which seems to be pretty average for a man.

If you would like more details such details such as print orientation and settings let me know. as for the sizing, if you send a picture of their hand on a white sheet of paper with a 1 inch line drawn as a correlation reference, I will be able to size the hand using a computer software program.