Inventor Easton LaChappelle was just 14 when he built his first robotic arm. Today, his company creates lower-cost prosthetic limbs for children who need them.
Growing up in Mancos, a tiny rural town in southwestern Colorado, LaChappelle had plenty of time to come up with fanciful inventions.
"I took apart everything I could get my hands on," he recalls."I would go to Walgreens, take all the disposable cameras they were going to throw away, and remove all the electronics."LaChappelle's first robotic hand used Legos as a plastic support base. He made the fingers from electrical tubing and used fishing line for the tendons, the thick tissues that attach bones to the muscles of the fingers and thumb of a real hand and make them move.
He built a 3D hand, and then an entire arm that could toss a ball and shake hands. In 2013, his robotic arm won first place for engineering in the The model he eventually developed lets users scan their limbs using a 3D scanner in their home, rather than having to get fitted in person. Then the company prints, assembles, and tests the limb. Finally, it's shipped to the user. By streamlining the production process, LaChappelle brought the cost of his prosthetic limb, called TrueLimb, down to $8,000.
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