3D Printing

Prosthetics and Assistive Technology Challenge Helps Veterans with 3D Printing

Stratasys Ltd. recently announced that they will be a participant in the Prosthetics and Assistive Technology Challenge, an interesting event hosted in Richmond, Virginia yesterday and today by the VA Assistive Technology Program and VA Center for Innovation.

VA_TourMap

Held at the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center, the event gives designers the chance to create 3D printed devices for Veterans. Stratasys provided 14 3D printers to the challenge, including a Fortus 450mc, three Fortus 250mc, six uPrint, three Mojo and one MakerBot.  Participating design engineers worked with some of Stratasys’s engineers and entered their designs in GrabCAD, Stratasys’s open-source collaboration platform.

“Stratasys is proud to collaborate with the VA to improve the lives of Veterans,” said Michael Gaisford, marketing program director for medical solutions at Stratasys. “This event is an ideal application of 3D printing to innovate designs to create custom, personalized devices that couldn’t have been made with traditional manufacturing. Stratasys is enabling prosthetics, orthotics, and assistive devices where one can affordably go from scan to design to print in a digital-only environment.”

After participants pitched solutions for problems facing Veterans, teams of like-minded were formed, and worked with designs submitted to GrabCAD along with support from Veteran mentors and Stratasys technical experts.  After the teams designed and developed their GrabCAD integrated ideas, they used the Stratasys 3D printers to test their design forms out.  They went through a number of design iterations, making adjustments on each pass through the iterative cycle.

According to Andrea Ippolito, presidential innovation fellow for the VA, “The collaboration with Stratasys is critical to accelerate the development of personalized assistive technologies and prosthetics for differently-abled Veterans. At this event, we can co-create and build designs based on each Veteran’s unique needs and obtain their feedback in a very agile, tailored pathway.”

Timeline

Stratasys had been working with Veteran Kim Matthews who has been diagnosed with an essential hand tremor, which causes uncontrollable shaking.  “When looking at the designs I was actually in tears over the thought of all of these wonderful people going out of their way to help. I was a bit overwhelmed and in awe of them; not only the intelligence that they possess, but all the hard work they are putting into this for us. Part of me felt like a kid at Christmas filled with happiness thinking that for once I could feel normal like others who do not have this disability.”

The challenge began on May 15th and 16th in Palo, Alto, launching a tour to bring awareness to issues facing Veterans, and getting America’s community of designers and makers involved with helping rehabilitation engineers solve unique problems disabled Veterans are facing today.  Another goal of the whole project is to create a permanent open ecosystem of designs of prosthetics and assistive technologies, that others can add to and browse through.