Hello all, my name is Calvin Rupnow. I am a student in the Digital Fabrication certificate program at UW-Milwaukee. I am also a SURF student under my professor Frankie Flood. The first time I met him was at the Kenilworth open house. He was talking about his work, and how he has worked with the group e-NABLE to design and build 3-D printed prosthetic hands for children who are in need of them. Since then, I have been given the opportunity to work with him and e-NABLE to bring these children functional hands to better their lives.
   
     This semester I will be focusing my research on developing a 3-D printed hand that will help a young boy we have made previous hands for play hockey once again. Before a tragic accident, hockey was one of his favorite activities. My goal is to make him a fully functioning hand to help him regain the ability to play. I am blessed with this opportunity and excited to see where it can lead.

One example of an existing design.

                                 

Another model of an existing design. Both designs have a flexible shaft shaft between where it connects to the arm and where it connects to the stick.

     

Here is a previous design that was made here by Frankie and e-NABLE.

As you see, with the fingers bent, there is no room for a hockey stick to fit in.

My initial idea is to increase the distance between the fingers and palm as well as make the fingers stiff, instead of having them grip when the wrist is bent.

Here are just some preliminary sketches and ideation I did while thinking of ideas.

After I had my initial idea, I decided to make a quick Rhino model to get a better idea of scale and looks.

My next step is going to be to get a better understanding of how the hand will function in the design and see if its a viable option. From there I will continue with virtual model and hopefully get a few test prints done.

Stay tuned...