3D Printed Candy

Inspiration Into Action

Several years ago while attending SXSW Interactive I ran across a vendor in the street giving away what I thought was hard, plastic toys. In reality, they were 3D-printed sugar dessert sculptures. You could either eat them raw as many were doing or you could choose to dump them in your coffee as I did. While I can’t say that the flavor actually enhanced my coffee (it essentially just turned it into a clumpy mess and I had to throw it away), the idea of actually creating something like what he showed me was amazing and stuck with me well beyond the encounter.

Several months later I would have the opportunity to work on a project that would have me contemplating 3D printing in a tangible sense. More on this later.

A Visit To The Lab

As luck would have it, I found myself in Minneapolis Minnesota for a convention and had the opportunity to tour the LimbLab. For those unfamiliar, the LimbLab is an advanced prosthetic facility that collaborates with patients in fitting prosthesis or orthosis through finding the best practitioner for their needs. They are connected to the Amputee Coalition, an organization that supports people dealing with limb loss. During my tour, I was able to see how they manufacture their products in-house and observe the care and craftsmanship that goes into each device. Seeing the tools and watching the manufacturing process that used many off-the-shelf technologies got me excited for possibly contributing myself.

LimbLab manufactured prosthetics through 3D printing
Example Gift of Hands Website

Opportunity For Collaboration

Serendipitously, I had a physician colleague reach out to me about developing a website for non-profit he was starting called “Gift of Hands.” The site was to be a community website in which people looking for prosthetics could connect with doctors and makers in sort of a marketplace for connecting people. Jumping at the chance, I soon found myself working on both branding and the website, exploring the possibilities of both through various mockups.
As interest in he project grew, it eventually got folded into a much larger organization called the Arroya Seva Global Health Volunteer Alliance. Under a broader umbrella, the site was able to leverage additional resources that by itself wouldn’t have been possible. Despite the changes, my interest in manufacturing remained.

As Steven Johnson says in his book Where Good Ideas Come From, “The history of cultural progress is, almost without exception, a story of one door leading to another door, exploring the place one room at a time.” 3D printing seemed to be on the verge of merging the inexpensive, maturing platform, and one that was becoming readily available. This is what Johnson would call “the adjacent possible.”

I always knew 3d printing was in my future. It was time for me to invest.

3D Printing and Building

I chose the Prusa MK3 M3 for its flexibility, open architecture, strong community of builders. I built mine from a kit and started off with basic example builds, then soon began working on more advanced projects. Finding freely available models on Thingiverse, I downloaded one called Flexihand and began the process of printing out the components, then assembling them. My crowning achievement to date has been getting approved through E-Nable, an organization that essentially does what Gift Of Hands had originally set out to do. My certification is for fabrication and assembly. The E-nable Hub is a great community of like-minded creators sharing resources and techniques.

My next step will be seeing if I can get connected with someone who is interested in receiving a prosthetic and finding a physician who can accurately provide the measurements. Stay tuned!

Badges of completion
Flexihand 2 Build