The Illinois MakerLab has recently completed a 3D printed hand to be part of the e-NABLE Community to work towards making prosthetic hands for those in need. The goal we have with this project is to get the Illinois MakerLab qualified as a chapter by the e-NABLE Community with the production and assembly of the Phoenix hand. Becoming qualified will allow us to be a provider of prosthetics to those who don’t have the privilege or accessibility towards devices that will improve their everyday lives. 

Feiyin Xue and Andrea Amador, Gies College of Business Students and Volunteers at the Illinois MakerLab, made the completion of this project possible with guidance from Mavisha and various gurus. 

“3D printing and this fun project is a brand new experience for us as business students. The actual work is far more difficult when we do it ourselves than watching someone else do it on Youtube. This assembling project improved our problem-solving ability as we are self-motivated to frequently ask why something failed and how we can get it fixed.” 

“Also, this project is more about the future. We are happy to be part of putting smiles on kids’ faces when they get to use it to help their daily life or having fun learning how to create a cool e-NABLE hand.”

It was challenging to overcome successful prints to assemble the phoenix device due to repetitive structural print failures. A possible cause of this was the orientation of print that affected the quality or strength of the part. A setback we also had was the need to reprint many of the parts. Something that we will keep in mind for future assembly is being able to adapt to the requirements so that we can ship in time. Due to the grinding and screwing of parts, we may resize our prints, so that the other parts seamlessly fit into another. Making these changes early on will allow us to prevent having delays throughout the process.