Team of expertsfrom Voronezh headed by Andrey Krovopuskov managed to make prosthesis for swimming

Using 3D printing technology developers from Voronezh have created prosthesis for swimming.

A year ago a guy without left hand asked them to make a device for swimming. He asked a large number of both local and Moscow prosthetists, but nobody agreed to try to make such a thing. Finally after a few attempts, almost at home they managed to combine 3D scanning, 3D printing and silicone molding to make durable and affordable polyurethane prosthesis that fully replicates the healthy hand.

"To scan both hands we made plaster casts using exactly the same technology that is used to create dental casts of the teeth. We scanned both plaster casts using camera Canon, digital projector and Voronezh development - Russian3DScanner.

To create drawing of the prosthesis, scanned model of the healthy hand was flipped, and then cuts and elements for fixtures were made.

The major difficulty we faced is the cost of 3D printing. 1 cu. cm. of printing costs 30-60 RUB. In this case, the volume of the hand was 870 cu.cm., and would cost 26000-52000 RUB. The key solution was to print hand with very thin walls of 2-3 mm, hollow inside. The model is fragile and glued from several pieces, but, which is most important, it shows the shape of the final prosthesis. We have put model into wooden box and filled it with two-component silicone, which is sold in stores of products for hobbies and soap making. Then we cut the silicone, removed the model and poured two component polyurethane available in the same store.

We hope that the prosthesis will help to solve a very important problem. The absence of one of hands almost always results in problems with the spine, because one arm gets incomparably greater load than the second. Over time, this often results in curvature of the spine. The prosthesis can provide an opportunity to regularly exercise in the pool and proportionally load both hands, "- developers say.