image with thanks copyright Jason Abbott
DoESLiverpool are developing an iteration of the Enabling the Future project within the “Build Your Own: Tools For Sharing” Exhibition at FACT 4 June – 31 August 2015 with the Crafts Council and in association with Norfolk Museums Service and Norwich Hackspace. Ross Dalziel, Patrick Fenner and Adrian McEwen who are permanent deskers at DoES Liverpool are helping facilitate and support a ‘production line’ area in the FACT show within their main gallery 1 on the ground floor to 3D print open source designs of upper limb prosthetics. It’s inspired by a local family the Abbott’s who used our workshop to print hand parts independently. You can see an image of Baylee Abbott above.
Over the course of the exhibition FACT Gallery Assistants and DoESLiverpool will assist the public in testing and building 3D printed prosthetics using the open source design “The Raptor Hand”. The public will have the opportunity to play, experiment and understand what prosthetics are and how access to rapid prototyping and open source digital making tools can help people make the world the way they want it.
By working with Reach in the NorthWest, the association for children with upper limb deficiency, we’ll be helping a number of children (primarily) from the North-West and, when the exhibition tours, East Anglia where Norwich hackspace are assisting. In addition, the exhibition which tours to Norwich will raise awareness within the Reach community and the general public about some of the uses for 3d printing. It’s worth noting that the Raptor Hand is more of a tool rather than a fully functional prosthetic device and has very limited grip strength. For more details on the design and its suitability check out http://enablingthefuture.org/faqs-general/
DoESLiverpool if you are new to us, as an organisation, do not do projects in a sense; we simply help our community to realise their projects with the facilities we have. Our community is essentially anyone who wants to do something with us. Part of the ‘deal’ of this project is that DoESLiverpool and Norwich Hackspace can keep the new larger 3D printers, Ultimaker 2’s, so that if people do need to print more hands in the future at DoESLiverpool, we will have extended our facilities so that they can. If a group grows and develops around the activity in the exhibition then that group can continue to use DoESLiverpool to support it like the many diverse groups that call DoESLiverpool home.
We are managing the project on github which we hope will aid Norwich hackspace when they help with their side of the tour.
There are a few dates of specific activity the public need to book on to aside from the public launch on the Thursday 4th June at 6pm. Booking details will follow on Eventbrite
- Measuring Up Saturday 6th June For children and families who need to measure their hands for a prosthetic
- What’s your superpower? A Prosthetic Hack! Saturday 25th July A chance to explore the possibilities of prosthetics
- Assembly workshop Saturday 8th August & Saturday 22nd August For people who want to assemble and fit the completed printed hands
Outside of these workshop dates the public can visit the exhibition and see the hands gradually being printed and finished so just like the DoES workshop but a little more formal and with more context and a visual explaination of the process of building the printed hands for DesktopProsthetics. Gallery assistants will be able to explain the process and show some of the completed parts as they are printed and prepped ready for assembly