Kind: captions
Language: en
[Applause]
I'm actually going to use my arms so I
can high five so many
people6 you're going to high five 106
people yeah aren't you going to get
tired no because because my Rob's going
to do all the work Alex was born without
a fully formed arm a condition that
affects around 1500 babies born in the
US every year I'm here to see him get
fitted with a new arm we have come a
long way in the development of
prosthetic limbs you might think of the
earliest prosthetic as maybe a peg leg
for a sailor but it actually dates back
much further than that in fact over
3,000 years ago to ancient Egypt the
thought was that our lives have a finite
length but that the afterlife is eternal
and according to the Theology of Osiris
the body needed to be complete because
the soul would leave the body in theory
and every night come back to replenish
its energy in the body and it was so
important that that body be full and so
there are many instances of prosthetic
noses ears toes and limbs which were
used in ancient Egypt to ensure that the
body was complete but a lot of those
Prosthetics weren't actually functional
so Prosthetics developed from Simply
being aesthetic aids to actually
becoming functional globally there are
an estimated 3 million people living
without an Upper Limb over the last 10
to 20 years we've seen remarkable
advancement in the development of bionic
limbs the problem with these prosthesis
is they typically cost in the order of
20 to
$100,000 now here at UCF they are
building an arm which can be used and
manufactured for much much cheaper like
1% of that cost how did you get inspired
to design an arm for children I was on
my way to work and I was listening to
the radio and there was an interview
with the person who developed the first
3D printed hand and I went into my
research lab and I said you know I have
to be a part of this what can I do to
help and then we had Alex's parents
contact us directly saying can you build
our son an arm the arm itself is
completely 3D printed and so are the
joints between the fingers there's a
cable which runs down the length of each
finger and back into the hand they would
normally be connected up to this servo
motor here now the idea is to trigger
this motor via the arm of the person
who's wearing it so they would wear
three electrodes on their upper arm when
the person wearing the arm squeez es
their muscle there's a little electrical
pulse which triggers this motor to pull
in 180° one pulse will close the hand
like this and then another pulse will
relax it so it opens back up our arm
provides a level of self-confidence to
the children whenever they're going to
school there's questions asked like what
happened to your arm did you get bit by
a shark or run over by a car or
something after we gave him the arm it
quickly changed to W that's a cool arm
how does it work where'd you get it I
like to do stuff on my arm like pick up
stuff hold my paper when I'm drawing I
actually bring it to school so so I can
actually do other stuff 3D printing is
relatively new technology but it
provides us a lowcost solution to be
able to create things so we can print
something out and say it doesn't work
just redesign it and print it out again
the next day we produce our arm for just
about $300 now whereas some of the
Prosthetics on the market can go upwards
of $40,000 insurance companies typically
don't want to pay for it for kids uh
because every six months you're going to
have to replace it as the kid grows but
this allows us to be able to reproduce
an arm for about maybe $100 and just
print out anyone how important is the
aesthetic design the artistic design of
the arm we thought kids just wanted to
blend in and feel normal but we found
it's much more about personal identity
and expression we want to make sure the
kid is expressing himself or herself
with the arm self-expression for a kid
is very important we have one sleeve
right here this one is actually themed
around the Disney movie Tangled we
provided this for a little girl named
madaline the design is so simple that it
is easy to print out on location and put
together even with very little technical
knowledge and also the functionality of
the design with only three electrodes
actuating the one servo make it so that
people can learn to use it very quickly
and that I think is what makes it so
powerful think I'll have any luck there
50/50
50/50 all right I can give it to you yep
I excited right now about trying out and
how to do some assault and do some
things I never done before I want to
play video games with it and hug good to
hands how have you been able to crack
this problem that other people haven't
before we have an incredible team of
very diverse backgrounds and so bringing
all of our common experience together we
were able to find this type of solution
our main base is in Orlando Florida at
the University of Central Florida we
have our designers in California I'm
here in Germany and uh everywhere in
between we have people trying to help us
and support our project although it's
challenging um we're making it work a
lot of our communication comes through
Microsoft One Note and we use this
product to be able to share information
through each other specifically since
Albert is in Germany so that's a whole
ocean away I think the best part of one
note is that you can edit it from
anywhere in the world and have it
simultaneously update anyone else on the
project so being able to get updates
from my team and see the progress
they're making enables me to help do my
job here in Germany what is the
collective project Microsoft is looking
for students who are wanting to impact
their Community with great ideas and
they're looking to Rally their
communities and the world around them to
help bring it to life our biggest needs
right now is one we need funding uh we
we need more donations to be able to
make this a reality and make these
children's dreams come true you want to
provide free arms to every kid who needs
one absolutely we don't feel like people
should profit from a child without an
arm we're hoping for people to jump on
board and help develop arms for their
local area if they want to help with
design they're more than welcome to join
our project and be designing arms they
can be printing out arms and helping um
spit them for their local community um
or they can just send us uh advice and
how to how to best tailor these for the
future we can eat we can use all the
help we can get where do you want to see
the Limitless arm Go My Hope for the
future is to be able to increase the
functionality of the arm to Encompass
maybe an elbow uh or even an Upper Limb
socket uh and then be able to produce
this on a larger scale for as many
children in the world who need it as
each child comes to us we really
understand and appreciate the need for
readily adap able readily Deployable
solution to each individual and unique
biology we're trying to get an elbow
going for Alex so he can have not only
hand movement but he can also move the
elbow as well to overcome that we have
to make this also bigger to be able to
put another Servo in there we like ideas
we're not just this is our way this is
how it has to be it's anything's
possible and we'd like to broaden our
field as well I think we're just at the
beginning of something really great and
I hope that with a little bit of help
we're going to be able to take this to
the UN and UNICEF and really impact
children all over the world thank you
guys for making this big project for me
that's fantastic thank you so much for
chatting to me thank you you're very
welcome this video was supported by
Microsoft OneNote in their Collective
project they have identified student
groups around the country who are
working together using their software in
order to change the world and the whole
point of the collective project is to
bring people together and you can get
involved as well by clicking on the link
in the description you could help by
providing new designs for Arms by
helping with software or even 3D
printing in your own community and that
will help get more of these arms out to
the kids who need them so I really want
you to get involved check out the link
in the
description