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3-D Printed "Iron Man" Prosthetic Hands Now Available For Kids
PC World (drawing on an article from 3DPrint.com) notes that inventor Pat Starace has released his plans for a 3-D printable prosthetic hand designed to appeal both to kids who need it and their parents (who can't all afford the cost of conventional prostheses). The hand "has the familiar gold-and-crimson color scheme favored by Ol' Shellhead, and it's designed with housings for a working gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer, and other "cool sensors", as well as a battery housing and room for a low-power Bluetooth chip and charging port." It takes about 48 hours in printing time (and "a lot" of support material), but the result is inexpensive and functional.
Disclaimer: I'm good friends with the guy who designed this hand. But either way, the hand is made out of PLA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... - Which we just so happen to use for drinking cups, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say "not poisonous at all".
While PLA is food safe, FDM (fused deposition modelling) objects are not safe for more than a single non-long-term use due to being relatively porus and impossible to clean properly.