3D printing hand exoskeleton

“It was harvest season and my father decided to take along three year old Cornelius. We were going to help a few of my uncles gather the season’s yield of cotton. [I Was] standing on the outside deck of the cotton picker, when my uncle proceeded to drive over a stump hidden amongst the crop. The machine tipped over and landed on top of me," Cornelius said.

The machine tore an entire nerve from his spine, and overstretched three others. This damaged left him with a right pec, lat and tricep muscle. “But the biggest impact has been very limited use my right hand,’ he explained. While Cornelius has some movement in his right hand, the muscles quickly freeze up, making it almost impossible for him to normally use it.

Surgery was an option for this problem, but the doctors advised Cornelius not to do it because it could cause him several complications. In 2014, the inventor started to think how to solve this problem by himself, by trying to restore the use of his hand by developing an assistive device.

Cornelius was not trained in this area of expertise, so this project was very challenging. He tried several contraptions, including a home-made glove made from tape and a bungee cord and a special glove worn by stroke victims. None of these options were satisfactory, and then he found out about an interesting prosthetic made in South Korea, that controlled movement through an exoskeleton setup.

The innovator thought about doing a prosthetic using 3D printing. All the different components were designed by himself, and then subsequently 3D printed by the non-profit 3D printer at the Toronto Tool Library.

"I am designing an assistive glove to compensate for the lost function of my right hand. More than restoring use of my right hand, it needs to be beautiful. It must be fashionable and spark conversation of "what is that" and not "what happened”," he added.

Adapted from: http://bit.ly/2oupQ3J

More info: http://www.corneliusquiring.com/

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4_H6y7RcSc