Israeli students design low-cost prosthesis to allow girl to play violin
The girl, named Yael from Petah Tikvah, was born without her left arm, leaving her unable to fulfill her long-harboured desire to play the musical instrument.
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDSProsthetic limbs(photo credit: JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH)
Students at Shenkar College of Engineering, Arts, and Design in Ramat Gan have made a 16-year-old girl's dream come true when they designed a prosthetic arm to allow her to play the violin.The girl, named Yael from Petah Tikvah, was born without her left arm, leaving her unable to fulfill her long-harboured desire to play the musical instrument.But at a recent Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM) Makeathon at the college, students were able to build upon a low-cost modular open-source prosthesis previously created by a team of TOM volunteers from Tel Aviv, and developed by another team in Singapore, to create Yael her special device.Incredibly, the prosthetic device created by the team cost less than $60. By comparison, a typical hand prosthesis normally costs anywhere between $5,000 and $50,000. But TOM focuses on 'neglected problems' - those where affordable market solutions are unlikely as the solution applies to too few people."It is unlikely that any major company would be interested in creating affordable solutions for specific desires of amputees to be able to cook, paint or play the violin. But our approach allows small teams, like Shenkar students, to create such products,” said TOM Founder and President Gideon Grinstein.The model is based on crowdsourcing volunteers who are willing to engage in "open innovation," developing products through multiple teams and iterations to help thousands of people globally.In the case of Yael's prosthetic, the product's journey began in 2018 when Tel Aviv community members created a comfortable prosthetic for IDF veteran Noam, who wanted something that would allow him to live more independently by being able to cook and paint.That device was then further developed for Tan Whee Boon, a young man who had lost both of his limbs to a flesh eating bacteria and wanted to be able to use the toilet independently and dress himself.And most recently, the device, which uses specialist attachments to a modular limb, allowed Yael and another Israeli, Itamar, 27, to play the violin and drums respectively.“The mission of TOM is to connect those with neglected problems and those with the power to create highly affordable solutions for those challenged. The second part of that goal is for the original product to be able to be scaled for others in need throughout the world. Products like the PJ Prosthesis demonstrate the tremendous potential impact of our program, by illustrating how teams all over the world can collaborate in developing additional solutions based on the original PJ-Prosthesis,” said TOM CEO Edun Sela.
Consequently, the next stage for the device will be to prepare it for global distribution by finalizing the design plans and replicating them for 15 additional users, who will troubleshoot the device by serving as test cases in Israel, the US, and the UK.TOM has 450 solutions such as the prosthesis in development, but the benefits aren't only for those who receive the affordable products."Our approach allows small teams, like Shenkar students, to create such products. TOM is a formative personal and professional experience for them. in advance of entering their future profession,” Grinstein said.
