Lehigh University offers a summer Mountaintop Program in a former Bethlehem Steel research building where students are brought together to freely explore open-ended questions that wander across the disciplinary landscape. Student Daniel Levy is part of a research team in the program, along with
“As I learned more about what had been accomplished last summer and what could be accomplished this summer,” Levy explained, “I saw the immediate help I could provide to a friend. One of my soccer teammates, who is also my best friend’s brother, suffered a spinal injury a few years ago and he has been struggling to regain hand function ever since. One of the most memorable experiences, and a major motivation for this project, was when I went to give him a friendly handshake to say hello and all he could do was lift up his hand to offer a fist bump.”
“Just by watching my wrist move up and down, I noticed that the distance between my forearm and first joint on my finger decreased as I lifted my wrist up. This got me thinking that maybe I could ‘push’ the fingers down with a rod attaching straight from my wrist to my fingers. I made a quick mock up in SolidWorks and printed it out within a few hours (oh the wonders of 3D printing!). After I proved my theory, I dove into the design.”
Levy established three parameters for his design: customizable, comfortable, and low profile. Currently, he feels that he has addressed the first two of those parameters fairly well, but that there is still quite a way to go before it can satisfy the requirement of being low profile. While some of the customization is practical, not everybody will want the same aesthetic and could really get quite creative.
“The hand can be customized in two ways. First the metal rods can be twisted to adjust the length between the forearm piece and the finger piece. They have an adjustable range of 2″, making it suitable for almost any hand size and each finger can be adjusted separately. the second is the ninjaflex collars that fit the fingers. These collars can be taken out individually and resized and reprinted, without having to reprint the whole hand,” he explained.
“The Mountaintop Program provided several Makerbot Replicator 2 and Ultimaker 2 machines,” Levy says. “All pieces besides the collars, which are the pieces in contact with the fingers were made on the Ultimaker 2. The collars, which were made from Ninjaflex, were made with the Makerbot Replicator 2 because that was the only printer that had Ninjaflex. Some of the pieces were made with 100% infill to increase strength, making the total print time for all the pieces around 18-20 hours maximum.”
“There are two main uses for this design. The first is a functional use, where the device will enable a person to grasp an object they otherwise did not have the finger strength to pick up. The second is for at home rehabilitation use, where the person will wear the device and repeat the wrist motion many times over. This repetitive rehabilitation is based on the idea of neuroplasticity, where repetitive assisted motion will generate new connections in the brain and eventually allow the person to move their limbs unassisted.”
“My vision is to have these open-sourced to everyone and also have a website/email where people can contact me and I can sell them a custom design if they would prefer. It would be awesome to have an exoskeleton line where my design along with my teammates’ designs can be downloaded or custom built,” Levy explains. “In the meantime…I have a business called Lehigh Biltong where we make South African style beef jerky.”
Admitting that he slipped that in as a shameless plug, I thought it only right for someone who was making such efforts to do so much good to have a bit of attention. After all, the more beef jerky he sells, the more filament he can buy. What are your thoughts on this enterprising student’s endeavors? Let us know in the 3D Printed Spiderhand Mobility Assist forum thread over at 3DPB.com.