BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) - Tying shoes, holding things, or being able to do a cartwheel-- activities people with two hands can do with ease. Now, four handless children can too.
WNY STEM Hub funded Hand in Hand, a program that created prosthetic hands using 3-D printers and tech tools for children.
Over the past two years, students have produced prosthetics for nine children. Today, three girls were the hand recipients and there is one boy from Ghana that will have their adaptive device sent to them.
High school students from around Western New York are the ones that build the adaptive devices.
"It"s so much fun working with the kids." Ed Hawkins, lead teacher of the Hands to Hands program said. "They are just sharp kids."
The adaptive devices will give the recipients just a little more mobility says Hawkins. He added that the devices are low cost and low powered.
"That"s the beauty of them... that they are field replaceable," Hawkins said. "The finger tips are baby pacifiers the tendons are not super expensive wires... it"s 50lb test fishing line. Everything is reparable and replaceable."
To use the device, all kids have to do is bend their arm.
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