A 6-year-old is experiencing life in a whole new way, thanks to some University of Louisville students who are lending a helping hand and breakthrough 3D technology.
Lucas Abraham is now the proud owner of not one, not two, but three new hands.
Lucas loves baseball and is a big fan of former Major League pitcher Jim Abbott.
“He’s pretty cool because he has a little hand and he can play baseball,” he said.
Lucas was born without a right hand. His fingers are not fully formed and his bones are fused together.
One day, his grandmother Julie took an extra step to make his life a little bit better.
“I heard him say to his mom one day we were in the car, he said, ‘Mom, when will I ever get a robo hand?’ and it just got to me,” she said.
Julie then wrote a letter to the University of Louisville.
Bioengineering professor Gina Bertocci and three teams of students designed and created prototypes for Lucas with open source software on the Internet, then used cutting edge 3D printing facilities at the university.
They came up with three hands for Lucas and during the first week of December he tried them out.
“I’m happy that I have this hand because I’ve never had a robo hand before and now I can pick up with this hand,” Lucas said.
“The most exciting part was seeing him catch that ball and throw it with that arm for the first time,” Lucas’ mother, Rachel, said.
“Just a minute ago he waved to me and he waved with the robo hand, which he’s never done before,” Lucas’ father, Erik, said.
Lucas can close the fingers with a flex of his wrist.
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