High school students create prosthetic arm for four year old

Photo 1

Most high school seniors spend their last few months dreaming of graduation and how to escape as quick as possible.

But for a group of Michigan teens, those last long weeks and hours were spent using a 3-D printer to create a prosthetic arm for 4-year-old Maeli Gottschalk.

During spring break Maeli’s mother Laura, an elementary school teacher, heard the story of a California girl who had received a prosthetic hand and arm created from a 3-D printer. Gottschalk told the Forest Hills Board of Education that after approaching her technologically-savvy colleague, Adam Zavislak, for advice, the two went forward with the help of an organization called Enabling the Future.

Zavislak then presented the project to a group of five seniors in his robotics class, all of whom got to work printing the pieces for a prosthetic arm.

“They spent hours monitoring the process of the pieces on the printer and continued with the technical part of stringing the pieces together,” said Gottschalk. “I know we will never know even half of the amount of time and effort they put into this project.”

The whole project took about 20 hours of printing time and three weeks to complete, using design resources from Enabling the Future. The organization is made up of volunteers focused on using 3-D printers to create mechanical hands and arms.

“It took a lot of time, but we go it done,” said Mitchell Dewey, one of the five students who helped create the arm. “It was a lot of fun and cool that we got to help a little girl in the process.”

Maeli, who was born without a left forearm, now has a workable hand that can open and close on elbow movement.

“[The students] created a world of opportunities and possibilities,” said Gottschalk.