A Group of Redditors Are Contributing Resources to Help Build a Prosthetic Arm

Thanks to the efforts of a network of Redditors, a man who lost both his hands in an oil rig accident may be getting some custom-built, 3D-printed prostheses.

A month ago, user Doctorspacemann (real name Matt) posted on r/fitness about how his older brother Ryan had lost most of both his hands, and how Ryan was depressed that this would hinder his progress in the gym. Matt asked his fellow fitness enthusiasts for ways Ryan could continue to work out, but ended up getting much more than that.

Wevolver, a platform for sharing open-source 3D printed hardware designs, reached out to Matt offering to help build a custom prosthesis for Ryan. Using the the Hackberry hand design from manufacturer exiii (pictured above), a new part-aluminum printing filament made by RepRap, and the research efforts of some interns at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Wevolver began to create a prosthetic arm designed to meet the demands of weightlifting.

However, around the same time the prosthetic limb was completed, Ryan's doctors decided to follow a different plan for his amputation, keeping more of his hand than was originally anticipated. This meant the limb Wevolver had created would no longer fit. Rather than give up, Wevolver employee Cameron Norris, who had been heading the project, returned to Reddit to ask for help.

The response was huge, and a new group of contributors are now working to build new prosthetics for Ryan. As 3D printing journalist Andrew Wheeler writes, "[this] method of crowdsourcing ideas and collaborating to bring much needed prosthetics to someone at a fraction of the cost is a project worth repeating."

Reddit has gotten a lot of negative attention recently, and while that criticism is merited, it's important to remember that the sheer scale of its community can also lead to some impressive acts of ingenuity and altruism.