Youbionic – Italian 3D Printed, Arduino-Driven Prosthetics Company #maketheworld #3DThursday #3DPrinting
Lead Designer Federico Ciccarese contacted us with a few updates from the Italian open prosthetic project Youbionic that adds a few interesting deformation strategies to those we have shared from eNABLE and projects like InMoov:
The hand’s movements are made possible by the complex internal geometries that form its parts and which can be manufactured only through 3D printing technologies such as selective laser sintering (SLS).
This new mechanical technology has never been used before. It works by “deformation of the material”. Every characteristic and behavior can be planned exclusively through its geometrical design and it requires minimal
assembly. During the design and development processes we can modify the tiniest details for improved efficiency.
Youbionic has been designed by combining the main skeletal structure with the rotational transportation leverage mechanisms. They are synchronized so as to obtain a double rotation starting from a single rotation. This means that a realistic movement can be obtained through a simple actuator. The
brain is an Arduino board and this coupled with sourcing of other commercially available components makes it possible for us to target a €1000 price tag.
…We envision Youbionic as a modular artificial hand. One of the key features is that it would be easy to replace the electronics and actuators so that the 3D printed part can always be set to fit the exact size of a growing child’s arm. Thus effectively filling the gap with current traditionally manufactured advanced prostheses while drastically reducing the cost.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! We also offer the LulzBot TAZ – Open source 3D Printer and the Printrbot Simple Metal 3D Printer in our store. If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.