High School Students Help their Differently Abled Classmate by 3D-Printing a Robotic Hand

High school can be challenging and intimidating for some teenagers. But luckily, a 15-year-old differently-abled boy from Tennessee found the right group of people.

Sergio Peralta was born with an incompletely formed hand. When he started his new year at Hendersonville High School, he wanted to hide his condition so that no one would ever know.

However, Peralta's life is not a typical high school movie where the kid gets bullied for being special. Instead, he was welcomed and supported by his peers.

His classmates were so supportive that they offered their robotic skills to create a prosthetic hand for the 15-year-old boy.

No More Hiding

According to a report by CBS News, a teacher from the school's engineering program was the first person in the school to find out about Peralta's condition. The teacher then told him that his classmates might be able to give him a robotic hand.

The students were unsure if their plan would work since they had access to internet models and, most importantly, a 3D printer.

It is worth noting that 3D printing is crucial in the tooling, prototyping, and fabrication of a robot. But more importantly, it also speeds up the manufacturing process because it is responsible for replicating the repetitive tasks needed to create a robotic product.

With just the internet and 3D printing, the students' efforts were proven successful after creating a robotic hand for Peralta.

Peralta told CBS News that his classmates changed his life forever as he could now catch a baseball with his right hand thanks to prosthetic 3D printing.

What is Prosthetics 3D-Printing?

Prosthetic 3D printing creates wearable artificial body parts such as hands, limbs, and legs. It is a relatively new approach in terms of production methods, according to Xometry.

It is possible that congenital diseases or traumatic occurrences caused the loss of certain body parts. When a victim's leg or limbs are seriously afflicted by a disease that causes its atrophy and disintegration, there are specific circumstances in which amputation surgery may be required.

If this is the case, experts then use 3D printing to create prosthetic limbs to replace lost limbs.

Xometry said that the process is appropriate for building prosthetics and provides a useful replacement for patients all around the world because the materials used are inexpensive and lightweight.