A student presents a method to produce printed prostheses twenty times cheaper

printed prostheses

Vincent Munoz, a student at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, in the autonomous community of Murcia, and a volunteer for the Rafa Can Foundation, an organization that works with children who suffer physical disabilities to promote their inclusion and their abilities, has just surprised us with the presentation of a new development and manufacturing methodology with which they can be created 3D printing prosthetics up to twenty times cheaper.

One of the main problems that Vicente Muñoz has had to face for the development of these printed prostheses for children is precisely that, due to the fact that they are for children, they are not as developed as those of adults. Thanks to this new methodology, children will now have access to simple and inexpensive prostheses adapted to each specific case and fully functional allowing gripping and pinching movements.

Thanks to this methodology, functional, simple and inexpensive printed prostheses for children can be created.

As commented Joaquin Roca González, director of the final degree project of Vicente Muñoz:

Thus, access to these devices is facilitated so that the adaptation of various models is possible, at a very low cost. For example, it is possible to design, adapt and manufacture prostheses for the different activities of daily life, from going to school, to practicing sports, to personal hygiene tasks. The costs can be reduced so much thanks to the production with 3D printers of all the components of the prosthesis, since the materials used for printing are very cheap.

As a detail and following what was mentioned by Joaquín Roca, mention that this project arose as an initiative to try to help Rafa, a 7-year-old boy who gives the foundation its name and who currently has a prosthesis valued at about 20.000 euros that, every three months , you need an investment of 2.000 euros to be able to adjust it. The prosthesis devised by Vicente Muñoz would have a cost between about 300 to 400 euros.


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