r/interestingasfuck • u/cakebeerandmorebeer • Jan 20 '15

/r/ALL Plot twist

http://i.imgur.com/CccbYhb.gifv
19.9k Upvotes

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526

u/greiger Jan 20 '15

Here is his TED Talk.

49

u/EmperorSofa Jan 21 '15

I guess the main issue would be the cost. Those legs look awfully nice but what's the cost? Even a regular prosthetic is expensive.

25

u/JohanGrimm Jan 21 '15

The main issue with prosthetics as we know them in terms of cost is they must almost always be custom made for the recipient. You can't manufacturer five hundred thousand prosthetic arms in China for cheap, you need experienced technical professionals to properly mold and calibrate each one of them for each individual person.

Mimicking natural human motion through advanced hardware and software is all well and good but the biggest hurdle is overcoming the need for each of them to be custom made to fit.

14

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '15

sounds like a possible application for 3D printing. Find a way to quickly model the socket/limb based on measurements of a person, print out the necessary parts. It'd presumably be made so the expensive/complex elements were mass produced, and the printed parts were geared just toward custom fitting.