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Science

Global Brain: RoboHand

May 4, 2015

Richard van As from South Africa lost several fingers in an accident with a circular saw, so he developed the Robohand. What's new about it is that the individual components can be produced on a 3D printer, making it much more affordable than conventional prosthetic hands.

https://p.dw.com/p/1FK5C

Producing a Robohand costs the equivalent of about 460 euros. Conventional prosthetic hands are priced at about 20,000 euros. To make it possible to produce the Robohand in remote places and crisis zones, Richard van As developed an extremely robust 3D printer, the Robobeast. With open source software and a printer costing about 3800 euros, anyone can now print out van As’s prosthetic hands, even "in a moving car."