What started with a 3-D printer donated by Staples to Wayside: Sci-Tech Preparatory (STP) high school grew into a group of inquiring minds using technology to give those in need a helping hand– literally. In September, STP’s 9th grade engineering students, led by their teacher, Tammy Koelling, used 3D-printing to create and assemble the pieces to prosthetic hands. Once completed, the hands were donated to e-NABLE, a non-profit that matches 3D-printed prosthetics to people in need of upper-limb devices both in our community and around the world.
The project was based on initial hand designs that were published by e-NABLE as open-source and public domain, which meant that STP’s students were able to download them for free and add their own unique customizations and improvements along the way. By working with e-NABLE, the class was also a part of the e-NABLE’s collaborative community of makers from around the world. Students relied on resources contributed by others within this community, including “how-to” tutorials and support forums, to complete the project.
“The whole project took us about a month,” Andrea Tristen, a student in STP’s engineering class, said. “The bigger parts of the hand took longer to print, so we spent time printing after school, and Ms. Koelling would also let the printers work while she was teaching.”
“We built what is calle
d a Raptor Reloaded 3-D printed hand,” added Taylor Franklin, another student in the class. “We learned how 3-D printing can help us help other people by printing all the pieces to the hands ourselves and assembling them from there,” she explained.
“The whole importance of this is that it’s more affordable than purchasing a regular prosthetic hand,” Tristen reflected. It would have been really expensive for a person who might not be able to afford it to buy one otherwise.”
“These hands are only around $30, and the quality is pretty good for that cost,” Franklin added. “It would be way more expensive for someone to purchase any other prosthetic hand.”
For teacher Tammy Koelling, the project was about positively shaping the minds and confidence levels of future leaders in technology.
“As technology continues to develop, teaching students how to harness cutting-edge concepts and tools for the greater good and giving them the confidence to share their knowledge with others helps build healthier communities, Koelling said about her students and prosthetic hand project.
In addition to donating the prosthetic hands they built, several of Koelling’s students also donated time to their local community by volunteering to speak on a panel at the Girl Scouts of Central Texas. There, they explained the concepts of the project to 50 Girls Scouts and helped lead them through a practice exercise on how prosthetic hands function. In the future, the Girl Scouts will apply what they learned to their own 3D-printed prosthetic hand building project.
All in all, Koelling’s class was able to apply the engineering concepts they are learning as they prepare for college to serve communities locally and globally while also being thought leaders in a 3-D printing community. They are the definition of Wayside Schools’ mission to prepare college ready, community engaged, global citizens.