Little Cool Hand Luke with his favourite eNABLE hand.
If you were left feeling inspired by our eNABLE coverage yesterday, prepare for some more heart-warming stuff with a story from Ultimaker that shows exactly how the eNABLE community is helping to change lives all over the world with 3D printing.
Luke Dennison, or Little Cool Hand Luke as he’s known by his friends, is an eight year old boy from Falmouth, US, who was born without the use of his left hand. In search of a solution to help his son, Luke’s father Gregg came across the eNABLE community, a global network setup to create affordable prosthetics for those in need, and armed with an Ultimaker 2 set about creating five different functional hands to enable his son to hold and pick up objects. These hands can be customised by colour and function - apparently Luke loves taking his favourite hand in to school and showing it off to all of the other children in his class. Watch the video here.
Gregg commented: “I feel a strong sense of pride as a father that my wife and I are able to provide my son with a new hand. Through e-NABLE and our Ultimaker 2 3D printer we are able to come up with a new hand whenever he needs one. Luke loves being able to pick the colours of his hand and show new designs off to his friends at school. e-NABLE and Ultimaker have made it easy for me to give my son the life he deserves.”
Luke's dad Gregg used the Ultimaker 2 to create several hands for his son.
Ultimaker CEO Siert Wijna added: “Ultimaker is honored to be a part of this ground breaking movement in medical technology. Our desktop 3D printers are the perfect tool for anyone to be able to print assistive hands at home with the help of e-NABLE. Ultimaker is also excited to see where the organization takes the possibilities of 3D printed assistive devices in the future.”
eNABLE is a global network of over 5,000 volunteers who are using 3D printing to create affordable prosthetic hands to improve the lives of both children and adults. These 3D printable files are free to download online and can be printed at home on a desktop machine. eNABLE is currently working on its biggest project yet to deliver 1,000 3D printed hands by September.
