US Navy Vet Uses a 3D-Printer and Hardware Parts To Create Cheap, $100 Prosthetic Hand!

By: | August 22nd, 2014

Prosthetic limbs will generally run you thousands of dollars but one man needing an artificial hand built his own by utilizing parts from Home Depot, for under $100.

Howard Kamarata, a United States Navy veteran, and his friend and engineer Casey Barrett, researched prosthetics and 3D printing extensively before deciding they could indeed make a fully functional hand with simple hardware materials.

Kamarata, age 57, had to have three of his fingers amputated last year after an electric saw accident, leaving him searching for ways to use his hand like he could before the incident.

The two men eventually found a free design online and picked up a glove from home depot, screws, high-strength braided fishing line, and utilized a 3D-printer to pull everything together.

Barret said, “The raw materials involved in this are less than $20. To get the parts printed can cost upward of, you know, $50 to $150, depending on where you go.”

Marshall Smith

Technology, engineering, and design enthusiast.

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