/ News
Teen Launches GoFundMe Campaign to 3D Print Prosthetic Arms You Can Control with Your Brain
The project that’s brought LaChappelle into prominence involves a chance meeting he had with a little girl using a prosthetic limb that cost upwards of $80,000, and that got the young engineer and designer thinking. So he built her a prosthetic arm. For a fraction of that sum. For just $400, in fact.
While projects like RoboHand are driving down the cost of needed prosthetic devices, LaChappelle’s arm is an extremely sophisticated take on solving the problem. Over the course of three years and working with online resources and collaborators alongside 3D designer Chris Chappelle, the project ultimately took 2nd place at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. He and Chappelle launched a successful Kickstarter project for what they called the “Anthromod” robotic arm.
The first version was a wireless hand controlled by a glove which included “flex sensors” sewn into the glove. Custom PCB boards and a custom servo shield, along with a set of XBee modules for wireless communication, completed the device. The system uses a wireless, EEG-capable headset which senses 10 different channels of brainwaves to control the arm.
It’s considerably more functional than a traditional prosthesis – and stronger than a human hand. LaChappelle says the next generation of the arm was capable of sustaining 50 pounds of pressure on each individual finger.
“The strength of the hand is so great that it’s almost dangerous,” LaChappelle says of the device.
LaChappelle made his first robotic hand out of LEGOs, fishing wire, and electrical tubing when he was all of 14 years old, and it’s now, after considerable effort on his part, a 3D printed marvel capable of operating in conjunction with the user’s mind.
The prototype, a practical — and affordable — device, once shook hands with President Obama and led to the young man’s work at NASA as a team member on the Robonaut project.
He’s also founded his own company, Unlimited Tomorrow, Inc., and it’s dedicated to developing an exoskeleton to help paraplegics walk again. That device is now undergoing the patent process and seeking FDA approval.
But it’s the advanced, open-source robotic arms that are truly a marvel. They can be used as prosthesis or as a STEM learning tool, and the device is as disruptive as it gets. Now LaChappelle is seeking funds to expand the program and develop the product through a GoFundMe campaign.
“I am raising money to expand our resources which includes more 3D printers, material development, manpower, and testing equipment,” LaChappelle says. “This will all help contribute to getting this technology to the people who really need it.”
And it’s no small task.
As LaChappelle refines the designs, he’s also using bleeding edge tools like HP Sprout to help share his designs online. It’s an effort to introduce a wide range of people to engineering, and socially-conscious makers and business people like LaChappelle are on the forefront of that movement.
The wide adoption of 3D printing and 3D design technology has spurred innovation and interest in STEM education around the globe. Do you know of any other projects which have caused disruption to the way education and business are conducted? Let us know in the Teen 3D Prints a Prosthetic Arm forum thread on 3DPB.com.
Source: http://3dprint.com/38355/teen-3d-prints-prosthetic-arm/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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