Check out these high-end prosthetics and fairings from Bespoke Innovations: impressive enough to be valued by recipients as a fashion accessory and engineered in some cases to be a boost to the activities they enjoy. While having a different goal than those primarily focused on making prosthetics more affordable and accessible, this team has received significant positive attention in the media this year because of their dedication to their mission to use 3D printing to revolutionize the aesthetics and function of prosthetics — so that the results are more greatly enjoyed by patient and positively perceived by public.
Bespoke Innovations
From the Bespoke website:
Bespoke Innovations™, Inc. was founded in 2009 by an Industrial Designer and an Orthopedic Surgeon whose mission was to bring more humanity to people who have congenital or traumatic limb loss. We are proud to be part of the movement towards individualized medicine, and a leader in bringing a more personal approach to the way a broad spectrum of medical devices are developed and used.
What drives us? It’s personal.
Each of our bodies is unique, as are our tastes and styles. Humans are anything but one-size-fits-all, and we want to recognize that fact. We achieve this by creating products that allow our clients to personalize their prosthetic legs. Our hope is to enable our clients to emotionally connect with their prosthetic limbs, and wear them confidently as a form of personal expression. Our products turn something ordinary into something amazing.
At Bespoke, we are driven by the fact that our process is paving the way for more products to be created ‘on demand,’ custom-tailored to suit the desires and the unique form of the person for whom they are designed. These products will be shaped by human needs, and enhanced by individuality, undiminished by the requirements of mass production. We envision a day when people are invited to participate in the creation of the products that have meaning to them on a fundamental level, a day when bodies are consulted directly in the creation of the products that enhance or complement them.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit — and today we will be sharing about Make The World: Prosthetics, a one month program on Google+ aimed at crowdsourcing the manufacturing and delivery of printed prosthetics to people in need, hosted by Adafruit’s Limor Fried, Matt Griffin and Phillip Torrone. Key partners on the program include Robohand, MakerBot, The Open Hand Project, Anthromod, Prosthetics for Prosperity, eNABLE, The Lucky Fin Project and Hands for Africa.
Adafruit’s Makers, Hackers, Artists and Engineers Community under the subsection “Make the World” is hosting this month long effort. Community members will post up with what they can help with, suggest people in need, and post pictures of their accomplishments/builds. In addition Makers will be able to find support for the creation of Robohands in the eNABLE Community on Google+.
A ways different from the usual prosthetics I have seen. This is a wonderful product with alluring designs that can compel disabled people to wear them not just for them to function well with their activities but also to look good despite the disability.