The international volunteer group E-Nable has become a catalyst when it comes to children receiving 3-D printed "robohands" and other prosthetics.

Chris Newmarker

They aren't a company. They don't sell devices. But what the nonprofit volunteer organization E-Nable does provide is a volunteer community with open source information for creating 3-D printed "robohands" and other prosthetics for children.

The stories continue to mount. One of the latest involves 7-year-old Faith Lennox, who lives outside Los Angeles, and the robotic hand she recently received. Her parents were on a waiting list with E-Nable. But their luck changed when a nearby 3-D printing studio called Build It Workspace was willing to create the hand on its own at a cost of $50 using E-Nable's designs.

Now Faith is looking forward to riding her bike with one hand instead of two, according to media outlets including The Associated Press  and the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

The 3-D printed prosthetics are revolutionary because children such as Faith often outgrow expensive limbs, Build It's Mark Lengsfeld told the AP.

Another recent story involves Alyson Pring's son Alex. He was born missing most of his right arm, and her family couldn't afford a $40,000 prosthetic once he was in elementary school. But through E-Nable, she discovered Albert Manero, a 3-D printing enthusiast who is a mechanical engineering doctoral student and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Central Florida, according to the university's Pegasus magazine. Manero was inspired enough by the elementary school student's need that he created LimbitlessSolutions with 14 other friends with skills ranging from engineering to nursing. They created a 3-D printed bionic arm for Alex during an eight-week sprint.

Check out this video of actor Robert Downey Jr. of Iron Man fame presenting the arm to Alex:

E-Nable's roots go back to 2011, when South African carpenter Richard Van As lost two fingers in a table saw accident, according to an NPR report. Van As ended up forming a long-distance partnership with Ivan Owen, a special effects artist and puppeteer in Bellingham, WA. They created a working mechanical finger for Van As, and then kept on with it--starting to help children and utilizing 3-D printers to make better devices. Along the way, they made the information about their inventions open source.

Jon Shull, a research scientist at the Rochester Institute of Technology, soon started the original E-Nable Group on Google+.  A community of 3-D printing enthusiasts interested in creating prosthetics for children was born. 

Chris Newmarker is senior editor of Qmed and MPMN. Follow him on Twitter at @newmarker.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to our daily e-newsletter.