There are so many exciting developments
with the surge of interest in and accessibility to 3-D printers. They
are not just inspiring children and adults to become engineers and
manufacturers, but also have many useful applications in the field of
medicine. 3-D printers have allowed people who need prosthetic hands
an affordable option. Robohand USA is a
company with a mission to create safe and low cost upper limb
prosthetics. These prosthetics can easily be customized and
repaired. This is a definite advantage to more expensive and
sophisticated prosthetics. Anastasia Rivas
is a 5th grader who is benefiting from
the work done by Robohand. She was born
with amniotic band syndrome which led the congenital deformity of an
under-developed hand. As a growing girl, Anastasia would outgrow
other more costly prosthetics (upwards of $60,000) quickly, and up
until this point cost prevented her from having one. With Robohand,
Ty Esham, a hand therapist, helped create most of the components for
Anastasia's new hand on a Makerbot Replicator 2 3-D printer for a finished product that
was $2,000, only a fraction of the cost of other prosthetics.
Sydney Kendall is a teenager who lost her right arm
below the elbow in an accident when she was 6. She benefits from a
prosthetic arm built by engineering students at Washington University
in St. Louis and Shriners Hospital. Her device only cost
$200 and she got to watch it being built!
Prosthetics are not the only area where
3-D printing can make a big difference in medicine. Doctors are
developing methods to harvest cells from patient's bodies to then use
to "print" the scaffold for new organs. With the ability to
customize organs for transplant they will potentially avoid issues
such as a patient's body rejecting foreign tissue, and the ability to
build child-sized organs rather than having to use adult organs in
children, and much, much more. This technology truly could
revolutionize medicine.
Clearly there are many practical uses
for 3-D printing, and with printers available more widely it makes
sense to incorporate them into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering
and Mathematics) programming in our schools. In the past year there
have been many opportunities for schools and teachers to apply for
funding or find a deal on a 3-D printer. Makerbot Academy has teamed up with Donorschoose.org to try
to get a 3-D printer into every public school. Grant-writing support
for 3-D printer funding is available from Stratasys. Universities like
Carnegie Melon and LeHigh have benefited from a $3 million grant from 3-D Systems, "America Makes" and the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania. Early in 2014 an incredible program was launched by
Autodesk with the help of Makerbot and Donorschoose.org to offer teachers Makerbot printers
for $98! The funding it certainly out there for opportunities to set
up maker's spaces in schools. This is an inspiring and exciting time
for getting kids involved in engineering!
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ReplyDeleteGreat read thanks for sharing! Crowdfunding is another effective way to easily raise medical funds for procedures like 3D printing and surgeries and more people are benefiting from it everyday. Check out crowdfunding platforms like http://www.plumfund.com/ to learn more about its benefits.