Chinese Man Builds His Own Prosthetic Hands

New submitter macbeth66 writes "Almost 10 years ago, Sun Jifa lost his hands in an explosion. Unable to afford the prosthetic hands recommended by the hospital, he built his own. From the article: 'After eight years of tinkering, he says he finally developed a working model that allows him to grip, hold, and mimic other necessary movements via a system of pulleys and wires.'"

Comments

Impressive!

[steppedleader]

Seems like this would be hard to do without hands...

Re:Impressive!

[Compaqt]

Why do you say that?

After all, Abraham Lincoln built the log cabin he was born in with his own hands.

Re:Impressive!

[wierd_w]

Dynamite is very effective at causing a major shockfront in the water, that ruptures the fish's swim bladders, which are used to control the fish's altituded in the water. Once ruptured, the fish can no longer swim, and will float listlessly on the top. It is usually also directly fatal to the fish.

It is a very indescriminate way to fish, but also *very* effective. It can completely denude a body of water of all fish.

if this man really was using dynamite to fish, it sounds like he got hold of one with a very fast burning fuse, which happens when the sticks get old. He is lucky to be alive at all.

Re:Impressive!

[DriedClexler]

He had help from M. C. Escher.

Re:Impressive!

[wierd_w]

Quite.

Dynamite (Authentic) is nitroglycerine, suspended in an inert matrix. Originally sawdust, but other inert matrices have also been used historically, such as diatomaceous earth.

The sawdust form is especially vulnerable to becoming old and "sweaty". Essentially, the suspended nitroglycerine wicks its way out of the matrix, and toward the surface, where it forms a "coating." This is bad for a large number of reasons:

1) Nitroglycerine is easily and readily absorbed through the skin, and is a well known cardiac-suppressant.

2) Nitroglycerine, without the stabilizing matrix, is a notoriously sensitive contact explosive.

3) The sweated nitroglycerine can wick up into the fuse, making it burn VERY quickly; FAR too quickly to throw away once lit, making old sticks unsafe for any purpose. It will explode almost instantly.

For these reasons and several others, the use of genuine dynamite has fallen out of favor in nearly all developed and developing countries in favor of more stable and less toxic/sensitive high explosives, like PentaErythritol TetraNitrate (PETN), and TriNitroToluene (TNT).

Genuine dynamite is fairly rare, and it is much more likely that this chinese fisherman was using home-made devices, like nitrogen fertilizer bombs made from ammonium nitrate and kerosine, but it could be possible he has/had access to the genuine article.

 

Re:Impressive!

[RabidReindeer]

Obviously he took a leaf from the Computer Science book, specifically the chapter on compiler bootstrapping. How do you compile a compiler?

You build by hand a crude compiler and use it to compile a more complex one, use that to compile a more complex one, use that to compile a more complex one, etc

Obviously he started with hooks and worked his way up to full hands from there.

The hard part was getting past the stage where he had scissors.

Re:Impressive!

[Dodgy G33za]

You do realise that by asking a question like that you might find yourself on a list somewhere? Maybe not at the top where Julian Assange rules supreme after OBL's demise, but on the list none-the-less.

Oh bugger, that probably means I am on it now too.

Re:Impressive!

[Dodgy G33za]

Fancy using OTOH on this article, you insensitive clod!

That glorious

[vencs]

High five he had after finishing it!

Groovy

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

I went from 'go Chinese man!' to 'one of those could have been a chainsaw!' remarkably quickly.

I'm trying to decide if that makes me bad.

Re:It's not just that he built his own prosthetics

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

He's a handyman.

See communism works after all

[zippo01]

See communism works after all. You start with a need, put in a little hard work and entrepreneurialism and poof, new arms. Of wait that's capitalism. Disregard.

Re:See communism works after all

[Anonymous Coward]

How is China a Communist state?

Re:See communism works after all

[houghi]

Communism is bad, because he needed to pay for his own medical needs. Of wait that's capitalism. Disregard.

Gotta hand it to him

[Anonymous Coward]

That is quite a feet.

Puns totally intended.

Inspiring

[asmkm22]

Say what you will about the Chinese but, if this were an American, he'd be shopping for a book deal and making millions as a motivational speaker. He'd probably get some weird Craftsman sponsorship as well. Instead, he seems genuinely interested in helping other people get access to what he built. It's inspiring, to say the least.

3D printing for cheap prosthetics

[Morgaine]

This man deserves a medal for ingenuity under extreme hardship.

One thing that added unnecessarily to his misery though was that the hospital recommended a prosthetic that he couldn't afford. It's not a huge stretch of the imagination for hospitals to run cheap RepRap-type 3D printers for such needs and print out basic parts on demand. Both the building and running costs are very low indeed.

Of course such parts would be very poor compared to professional prosthetics or even professional 3D printing, but when the choice is between that and nothing, it's hard to argue against it. And the flexibility of such printing means that it is easily adapted to evolve with individual requirements, and replacement of printed parts is almost cost-free when they break or wear out.

It seems a good fit for this kind of unfortunate situation, and it might have made this man's days more bearable as he worked on his own solution, or indeed contributed to it where plastic is more appropriate than steel.

Re:3D printing for cheap prosthetics

[Anonymous Coward]

This man is a badass. If you look at the pictures everything is made from scrap.

Problem is the egregiously high cost of some medical devices. Outrageous in most cases.

However, once he starts building them for others his costs are going to go up, or he will have to absorb a huge amount of liability. It's not always that simple since the majority of most medical device costs are the insurance. That's most often why something that would be a few thousand is all of the sudden 20k in the medical industry. Nothing all that different in the specs, just the insurance.

Material costs will go up once he starts using different materials as well.

We could send this guy a 3D printer and some materials (assuming he has the sophistication to use the software) and it might just end up getting him in trouble with the authorities or landed in court.

All that being said it would be awesome if this guy could get paired up with a Chinese engineer and they could build low cost prosthetic based on his design.

Definitely an inspiration.

Re:Handy

[dark grep]

Hey, at least he has come to grips with the digital age.

Few float

[SgtChaireBourne]

Actually only a few will float to the top if you use explosives. The majority will sink to the bottom and go to waste. If you want to do it right, stun them with electricity, but not enough to kill them, and then they will float to the top. That way you can also release live the ones you won't eat. I've seen the DNR gather fish for their surveys using stunners and the equipment is rather simple.