By Kevin Coughlin
Peck School 6th-grader Jordan Cheung made some adjustments to her arts enrichment project this week and appeared satisfied.
“It’s nice to know you’re giving a hand to somebody,” she observed, matter-of-factly.
In fact, she was creating a prosthetic hand that will enable a disabled youngster to perform simple activities such as throwing a ball or grasping bicycle handlebars.
A dozen students of Bruce Schwartz, technology integrator for the private K-8 school in Morristown, have been assembling the hands from fishing line, elastic jewelry string, and plastic parts created on the school’s 3D printer.
They are part of e-NABLE, a Do-It-Yourself movement born in 2011 that has delivered more than 1,800 free hands and arms, mostly to children, in 40 countries.
The materials cost about $5 per hand, said Schwartz, a Morristown resident who heard about the program from a teacher friend. It takes about 20 hours for the school’s 3D printer to print the pieces, layer by layer, for each of these hands.
His 5th- and 6th-graders are assembling the pieces over the course of eight class periods, following instructional web videos on their MacBooks. It’s painstaking work, but the tweezer-wielding students seem to enjoy it.
“It’s tedious, but it feels good,” said James Thomas, a 6th-grader from Chatham. “We’re helping people who are less fortunate than ourselves.”
“It makes me feel like all this frustration is worth it,” added Jack Wells, a 6th-grader from Randolph.
The movement started by accident.
Ivan Owen of Washington State made a functioning puppet hand for a steampunk convention in 2011. He posted a YouTube video…and soon got a request from a South African carpenter who had lost four fingers in an accident.
Next came a request from the mother of a young South African boy born without fingers.
Owen did some research, and found information about a prosthetic hand of whalebone and pulleys, created by an Australian dentist for a victim of a cannon mishap in the early 19th century.
Collaborating with the carpenter, Owen fashioned a bulky but functional prosthetic hand from materials bought at a hardware store.
They devised plans to produce hands and arms with 3D printers, and with help from an R.I.T. professor, shared the plans online with the open-source, do-it-yourself community, which shared ideas and improved designs.
The founders say these basic prosthetics have been a godsend to children who cannot afford costlier, more functional models. Kids who were bullied because of their disabilities suddenly become cool owners of extremities in the bright colors of their favorite superheroes, according to EnablingTheFuture.org.
Video: Becoming an e-NABLEr:
Schwartz said the program is evolving. He’s taken some abuse from lefties in his family; his class only is churning out right hands for now.
And at the moment, he said, there is no channel for connecting the makers with the recipients of their handiwork.
That would please 5th-grader Adia Decker of Mendham. A 1st-grader in her dance company could use one of these prosthetics, she said.
“That’s why I wanted to do this,” Adia said. “I really hope I can give it to her.”
