3D Printed Prosthetic Grabs Dyson Award

A 3D printed prosthetic hand made at a fraction of the cost of current alternatives has won the national UK stage of the James Dyson Award. The Dextrus hand, created by Joel Gibbard and his team at Open Bionics, will now be eligible for the international prize and the chance to win nearly £30,000 in prize money.

The James Dyson Award asks university students and recent graduates to “design something that solves a problem”. This year’s competitors tackle a wide range of issues, from the Less Leaves leaf collector which removes leaves from driveways without disturbing gravel, to the Giraffe Reader which allows blind people to take perfect images of A4 paper for text-to-speech recognition on the move.

Joel Gibbard’s entry aims to make upper limb prosthetics with finger control as accessible and affordable as possible. Like most prosthetics of this type on the market, the hand and fingers are controlled through sensors on the wearer’s skin that detect muscle movement. But unlike its competitors, the Open Bionics hand can be fitted and manufactured for less than £2000 with a completely open design available for developers to download and use for free.

Gibbard began work on his protoype whilst studying Robotics at the University of Plymouth in 2011. After graduating and working at National Instruments for two years, he set up The Open Hand Project on the popular crowdfunding site Indiegogo. The movement raised £43,000 in just one month, allowing Gibbard to start his own company – Open Bionics – the following year.

The company has only been running for 18 months, but the Dextrus hand has already attracted a lot of attention. Open Bionics is one of 10 finalists for the Nesta Inclusive Technology Prize, and was recently awarded the Accessibility Award and Winner of Winners Award from Tech4Good. The company has also been chosen as one of the 50 most influential companies in the global robotics industry by the robotics business review, alongside Google, Amazon, and Panasonic.

Samantha Payne, Co Founder of Open Bionics said: "We're thrilled to have our work validated by the incredible engineers at James Dyson. At the moment we're still prototyping and we're looking to start user-trials. If you're an amputee interested in our work, or if you were born without a hand please get in touch with us! Our email is hello@openbionics.com".

3D Printed Prosthetic Grabs Dyson Award

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