Disabilities suck, especially when they happen to kids that just want to be normal and do normal healthy kid stuff, so it’s always cool to see someone overcome the odds in the coolest way possible: ROBOT HANDS! Such is the case with 7-year old Faith Lennox, who lost her left forearm at 9 months, due to the awful condition of compartment syndrome while in utero, according to ABC News.
The oldest of three children, Faith had compartment syndrome when her position during childbirth cut off the flow of blood to her left forearm, irreparably damaging tissue, muscle and bone. After nine months of trying to save the limb, doctors determined they had to amputate just below the elbow.
After years of wearing clumsy and expensive prosthetics, Faith was put on a waiting list to receive a lightweight 3D-printed arm with the help of Mark Lengsfeld of the non-profit E-Nable group, as well as the Build It Workspace in Orange County CA. All for the unbelievably low price of $50.
E-Nable provides open-source technology for building the hand, Lengsfeld said, making it economical for anyone with the right printer and a set of instructions to create one. Faith’s only costs $50, and when she outgrows it she can easily build a bigger replacement.
And she even got to pick the color!
But when it came to getting one custom made in a day by a 3-D printer, that was a different story. Particularly when she got to pick the colors — her favorite pink, blue and purple, like the ones on the tank top she was wearing. It didn’t hurt, either, that the appendage, called a robohand, looks a lot like the pair Marvel superhero Iron Man wears.
You might remember the similar story of 7-year old Alex who had a ridiculously cool Iron Man 3D-printed arm made for him and then presented by Tony Stark himself, Robert Downey, Jr. Or the subject of Uproxx’s first Luminaries documentary, 19-year-old Easton LaChappelle, who aims to make stories about ultra-affordable prosthetic limbs commonplace:
It’s only a matter of time before one intrepid little tyke asks for the baddest robot arm of them all…
Source: ABC News/AP