Juniors in the Product Design & Manufacturing (PD&M)
Program at the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Center at Olean have
created a prosthetic hand as part of their course work. According to Instructor Jim Hilyer, “With a
design downloaded from the E-Nable organization - a worldwide volunteer group
dedicated to providing free 3D printed prosthesis to those in need - we have
created a "sample" prosthetic hand and are now actively looking for
someone in need (of such a device). We
could help someone local, regional, or even world-wide.”
Mr. Hilyer ordered a $30 kit from E-Nable which included
Velcro, foam, pins, nuts, and fishing line.
There are several designs available through E-Nable for various hand/arm
disabilities, and they can be scaled and modified to fit the user's needs.
Nolan Hurlburt, an eleventh grader from Olean High School,
served as the project manager for the ‘Raptor Reloaded’ prosthetic hand design
obtained from E-Nable and built collaboratively by the five current students in
the class. He explained, “We used PLA or
polylactic acid plastic to make all of the hard plastic parts. PLA is essentially what’s left of sugar cane
after they extract the sugar from it. We
used our 3D printers to make the PLA parts and each of us (five students) was
responsible for making one of the fingers (or thumb) for the device. Each of the fingers is made up from four
separate plastic parts.”
 |
| Project Manager Nolan Hurlburt is
shown with the ‘Raptor Reloaded’ prosthetic hand he built with four classmates and a roll of PLA. |
Another junior from OHS, Alek Shubert, offered, “The most
difficult part of the project was scaling the plastic pieces to fit the
pins. The pins wouldn’t fit if the
pieces were made too small and they would fall through the holes if the pieces
were too large. It was hard to get
everything just right.”
According to Mr. Hilyer, “In traditional engineering, you
get to design the product, but that’s all you do. The idea of this (PD&M) class is to allow
the student to experience and participate in all aspects of a project: design,
build, purchasing, etc.”
He added, “Here at BOCES, we also have the biggest ‘Maker
Space’ in the area, so my students get to experience it all. We have a 3D printer space, all sorts of CNC
machines, as well as many manual milling machines.”
This project served as a good example of ‘additive
manufacturing’ for Mr. Hilyer’s students.
With ‘additive manufacturing,’ you are adding material to make the
finished product. With a 3D printer,
that’s pretty much what’s happening.
This is different than the traditional ‘subtractive manufacturing’
process, where you are cutting parts or the finished product out of material.
The prosthetic hand made by the PD&M students would
require the recipient to have a fully functional wrist and at least part of
their palm. If you know anyone who could
benefit from such a device, please contact Mr. Hilyer via email
(james_hilyer@caboces.org) or his cell phone at 814-596-2487.
