A literary work in which the author simply starts the narration at a punctuation mark in the lives of the story's characters, and then exits the narrative with a lack of complete closure is referred to as "a slice of life" writing style. This very real narrative is like that, and has two points of partial closure, but moves on into the future completely open-ended.

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?”

The narrative achieves partial closure as Richard Van As of South Africa obtains artificial fingers, a little boy named Liam receives a prosthetic hand, and Ivan Owen of Washington State, USA works with Richard to make that happen. The story moves into an open-ended future with the release of public domain 3D printer CAD (Computer Aided Design) prosthetic design files, and the intent to provide at no charge, as many helping hands as possible.

Ivan Gives Everyone a Hand on YouTube

Ivan Owen grew up with "a bit of an obsession" about hands, and a developing interest in "complex and unusual mechanical systems". He embarked on "a personal project" which he described as follows: "I decided to build a giant, cable controlled mechanical hand that could be worn and operated by a person’s actual hand. It was pretty out there; a giant metal monstrosity that moved like it was alive. On a whim I made a quick video of it and posted it on YouTube. I had no idea at the time what it would lead to."

Coming Up Short Handed

Thousands of miles away in South Africa,  Richard Van As saw the video and sent an e-mail invitation for Ivan to join him in trying to build mechanical digits to replace fingers for amputees. That was a matter of focused intensity for Richard who had recently experienced his own slice of life, and had become an amputee himself as a result of an encounter of the painful kind with a power-saw in his workshop in May of 2011. He describes that day on the website ComingUpShortHanded.com and says: "Some of what I have written has some humour to it. Take no offense as this is who I am."

Writing about his first e-mail to Ivan, Richard had this to say: " I have never been one to ask for anything but eventually I decided to email Ivan. With not too much detail I simply asked if he was keen to “lend me a hand”. Excuse the pun. I was delighted and gobsmacked at the same time to read his reply. We were on I thought."

Over the course of more than a year, Richard and Ivan have only worked in the same room together for a few days. Most of the work has been accomplished by exchanging 3D printer design files by e-mail and through "face to face" meetings via Skype. Ivan said: "As part of the process, Rich sent me an exact replica of his hand that he cast from plastic along with parts and materials to try out." To support the project the Makerbot company supplied two MakerBot Replicator 2 desktop 3D printers.

The project to build a low-cost, easy to replicate prosthesis for Richard was successful and has given birth to more prototypes, fund-raising, and an even more engaging slice of life story involving a little boy named Liam, and the latest iteration of the prosthesis known as Robohand.

A Little Boy & A Love Story

Five-year-old Liam was born with no fingers on his right hand, but he has five of them now at no cost to his family. In a matter of days after having his prosthetic hand fitted and adjusted, Liam has become very well acclimated and is even able to pick up small coins. Readers will have a much fuller understanding of the impact of these projects by spending only a few minutes with these video links.

And Many Helping Hands to Come

On the website ComingUpShortHanded.com, Ivan has this to say about what comes next: "My vision for the future will be to take this knowledge and carry it as far and as fast as possible. Get the design and parts out there to as many people as possible so that we can do as much as we can to help fill this need. I can’t fathom how many people there are out there who are in need of a system like this, but we will strive to meet as large a portion of that need as possible."

The 3D prosthetic design files are available free of charge at Thingiverse.com.