Ben and Mark are twins.  Both boys love doing lots of stuff together.  Like all twins they are similar in many ways, however Ben happened to be born with no lower left arm below the elbow. 

Ben and Mark wanted to join their local hockey club to play in a team sport together.  Apart from being a Product Designer (Industrial Designer) myself, as it happened, I was actually also the Beginners Coach at the club and would be Ben and Mark's coach for their first year of hockey.  Hockey is a two-handed sport, so how could this work for Ben?

One year earlier Ben had received a 3D printed arm from IT Tallaght (Dublin, Ireland) under a program called 3D-Assist run by their Engineering Department.

The 3D-Assist program is a collaboration with e-NABLE, a global network of passionate volunteers who use 3D printing to give the world a 'Helping Hand'.  3D printed hands and arms are designed and created for free by this community of volunteers and given to those who need an upper limb assisting device or prosthesis.  This global group operate on an 'open-source' basis, sharing ideas and know how.  The website enablingthefuture.org provides; information about e-NABLE worldwide, stories and reference material, along with all you need to know to build and provide any of these devices to someone in need.  

I went with Ben and his family to IT Tallaght (Dublin, Ireland) to meet with Robert O’Connor, head of the 3D-Assist program, to ask if they would work with me to produce a new hockey arm for Ben.  They agreed!

We worked together to adapt the existing printable arm design to make it suitable and strong enough for sports use.  I provided the design input for modifying the existing arm parts needed, and developed adaptions for using a hockey stick based on my hockey expertise.  Robert edited and reproduced any of the printable 3D parts I needed. 

My first set of ideas were prototyped by 3D-Assist.  I tested it with Ben and could see more issues that needed solving.  I needed to give him a fully functioning designed wrist joint to allow his stick to move freely and naturally.

I developed a strong and robust metal wrist adaption that fitted onto a strengthened 3D printed resin arm section.  This was critical as the prosthesis was essentially a piece of sports equipment.  The metal wrist design had a very compact 3 way hinging system that gave 360° free movement and all of which was made from very inexpensive off-the-shelf modified metal fittings.

Ben and Mark helped me test the final prototype and we made some minor adjustments, so Ben could quickly pop the prosthesis on and off if needed, e.g. for warm ups.

Ben and Mark completed their first year of playing hockey and continue to play.  It turns out that Ben is a pretty good hockey player, as is his brother.  And the twins love playing hockey together.  I’ve given all the design know-how to Robert at 3D-Assist, so that they may be able to help any other kids who might need a similar solution.  This project is very close to my heart, as it taught me a very important life lesson.  With some good design and some problem solving know-how, as designers we can actually transform lives.