At the beginning of this week, a team of more than 120 designers, engineers and makers from Israel and around the world began a marathon making session that would see them work for 72 hours straight, in the world’s first Humanitarian 3D Printing Make-A-Thon. Visual News writer Shawn Saleme was on the ground, reporting on the event, in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth, where many creative teams were working on 13 primary humanitarian projects.
Founded by Arnon Zamir and Josh Gottesman, the event is inspired by the Hebrew words Tikkun Olam, which, translated into English is “repair the world”. That is exactly what TOM (Tikkum Olam Make-a-thon) participants intend to do, supported by Hi-Tech companies such as Intel and Stratasys — both of which have a very strong presence in Israel.
Stratasys in particular is supplying both MakerBot and high end Polyjet 3D printers (the Polyjet technology was developed by Objet, which is the Israeli company that Stratasys merged with). Along with Intel processors and the work of many Intel engineers that are participating in the event, they were used to tackle many different projects catered to each person’s specific necessities, but also applicable, in the future, to other people with similar needs.
One example is Liron Atia, who was paralyzed after a snowboarding accident: a group of seven makers worked to customize his wheelchair so that he can independently adjust himself and reduce the formation of pressure sores. He enthusiastically participated in the project. “It is too good to believe”, he said. “I thought about society and the world and why these things don’t happen more often. I’m happy to be participating here and hope more events like this happen.“
Liron’s is not the only fascinating project that the TOM participants focused: others included a 3D printed hand for 9 year old Natanel, crutches that can convert to a walker, a 3D printed shoe for Roy, who was injured by a hand granade. The list goes on and on. Check out Shane’s report, or the video below, to learn about all the amazing projects: some even include state of the art eye-control glasses and a brain-controlled robotic hand.
The Israeli’s ability to help the less fortunate is truly amazing, and examples such as this remind us of the country’s resilience and spirit. But even on this website we cannot pretend that – in a very different part of Israel – dramatic events are not taking place as we speak. Unfortunately there is no 3D printable fix for those.
