{"id":9257,"date":"2014-11-04T08:36:53","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T13:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=9257"},"modified":"2024-07-02T14:43:55","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:43:55","slug":"3d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=9257","title":{"rendered":"Helping Hand featured on ‘CBS This Morning’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jeff<\/a>
Jeff Powell (photo by Dan Sears)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Editor’s note: Jeff Powell’s story was featured on CBS This Morning<\/em> on Nov. 24. Watch the video.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeff Powell has been building things for as long as he can remember.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played with Legos all the time when I was young,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in taking things apart and seeing how they work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powell, a senior in biomedical engineering<\/a> in the College of Arts and Sciences, recently applied that interest to help 7-year-old Holden Mora of Chapel Hill, who was born without fully formed fingers on his left hand.<\/p>\n

Using a 3-D printer in the basement of Phillips Hall, Powell spent part of his summer designing and developing a prosthetic hand for Holden.<\/p>\n

\u201cProsthetic hands costs hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars just for the most simple one,\u201d and kids outgrow them in a year or so, he said. \u201cNow that 3-D printing has come in, we can get a full prosthetic hand for about $20 of materials.\u201d<\/p>\n

When 3-D printing first began in the 1980s, the massive printers cost upwards of $100,000 and were used mostly by car manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Fast forward 25 years and the printer has scaled down in size and can be purchased for as low as a thousand dollars. Today, 3-D printers can create everything from shoes and shirts, to prosthetic arms and hands.<\/p>\n

The fingers of Holden\u2019s prosthetic hand open and close as he bends his wrist. Though Holden won\u2019t be able to use the fingers individually, his father, Peter Mora, said the hand is helping his son pick up new skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s definitely excited about things he\u2019s tried many times before but is now trying in a new way,\u201d Mora said. \u201cHe\u2019s working on learning how to tie his shoes, and he\u2019s holding a baseball bat with two hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hand consists of 12 parts, each taking from 40 minutes to five hours to print. Powell turned to the Internet to learn how to design each piece, meeting obstacles using the printer throughout the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can have a four-hour print and get three hours into it and it fails. That\u2019s time you\u2019ve lost,\u201d Powell said. \u201cI ended up trying three different designs before I found the one that worked best for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powell is a senior from Red Oak, N.C. He\u2019s also the design chair for the Biomedical Engineering Club on campus.<\/p>\n

Because of his background in design, research associate professor in biomedical engineering Richard Goldberg put Powell in touch with the Mora family. Goldberg said matching students with projects like this helps put their skills to the test.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get students to mobilize and address some needs outside the scope of a class\u2014because there is a great opportunity for students to get a real-world learning experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Powell\u2019s work has sparked the interest of some of his peers. With their help, Powell hopes to continue helping families in need.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people put in maybe 30 hours of time, all it takes is 20 bucks and you can greatly affects kids\u2019 lives,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it doesn\u2019t cost anything but time, let\u2019s do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, visit http:\/\/www.empowered.org\/Helping-Hand-Project. <\/a><\/p>\n

The Research Hub<\/em><\/a>, a new UNC Library initiative to make the entire research life cycle at UNC more connected, collaborative and technology-enabled, is making 3-D printing more accessible on campus. A Kenan Science Library Hub features a new makerspace and 3D printing facility.<\/em><\/p>\n

Story by Parth Shah ’15, College of Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Photo by Dan Sears, Office of Communications and Public Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior biomedical engineering student Jeff Powell used a 3-D printer in the basement of Phillips Hall to build a prosthetic hand for 7-year-old Holden Mora of Chapel 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