Two students from Mataró create “Building a hand”, prosthesis of a hand using a 3-D printer

To obtain the necessary funding for their project, the students have basically used the network. Via the Verkami portal (http://www.verkami.com/locale/es/projects/15647), on which users can make contributions to fund the announced project, they easily earned the initial requested €450. On the day of the interview, they had already collected more than €1,100. “It was like a “boom” that we didn’t expect", they say. One example is Impulsa Brokers, an insurance company that contacted the two young students in order to fund the project. “Although we had what we asked for, the people continue to give their grain of sand to contribute to our work.” 

Along with the Verkami platform came the creation of a block (http://trescolapia.wixsite.com/buildingahand), with all of the information on the project and the development of their work, and the publication of a video on YouTube, which presents the case of Toni De Juan, a user who was born without his left hand and came forward as a volunteer to demonstrate the product and to confirm whether or not the new prosthesis works. “It was difficult to find Toni, but we are very grateful to him for his collaboration”.

Both Ariadna and Màxim are very satisfied and excited at the project, and believe that if the opportunity arises, they will continue to work on it once the project has been delivered. As they say, “We have learnt to design, to model in 3-D, to organise ourselves and to work in a group, but we still have a lot to learn and improve”.

Apart from this, they are also very grateful for the acceptance of the project and the support they received in disseminating their work.

“What most surprised us is the social impact that our project has had and the amount of capital we have received from the collaborators. The media have also played a very important role, which is the website, the blog and above all Verkami”.

The two students hope to continue with their university studies in some area of medicine. In the case of Ariadna, medicine or biomedical engineering, and Màxim hopes to focus his studies on biomedical engineering or mechanics.

In Fundació TicSalut we will follow their tracks and wish them good luck.

You can view a summary of the project on the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDWbKSshAgk&feature=youtu.be