Make as many distasteful cyborg jokes as you wish, because nothing can ruin the sheer awesomeness of a Lego-compatible prosthetic arm made specifically to educate disabled children and give them a sense of fun-filled agency.
Developed by the Umeå Institute of Design and Lego Futurelab, the IKO Creative Prosthetic System is meant to "explore and empower their creativity in a playful, social and friendly way," according to a press statement issued by the institute.
Headed by scientist Carlos Arturo Terres Tovar, the project began with a simple question: what if kids could harness their imaginations to create accoutrements that catered to their own needs in an interactive, fun fashion?
Most importantly, IKO is kid-friendly: a series of modules can be locked into place to control a three-fingered grip that can be easily interchanged with a four-fingered, Lego-compatible model.
"Playing makes sense for all of us. So what if we made a bridge between a playful experience and an everyday functional prosthetic system," an informational video released in tandem with the press statement posits.
Featured in the video is a small Colombian boy named Dario, who uses the prototype to build prosthetic attachments which include a bulldozer and a spaceship, among other things.
Sometimes, humans, you're doing it right.
See Dario create some LEGO masterpieces in the video below.
