The API production team focuses on the design and manufacturing of affordable and open-source prosthesis designs. While it is exciting to work with open-source and 3D-printed prostheses, most of the designs we have found have some notable issues that prevent them from being as useful as we might hope. The job of the production team is to make sure that when people get accessible prostheses, they also get quality prostheses.
Mission
While there is a lot of excitement around 3D-printed prostheses, there are still some barriers that prevent them from having maximal clinical impact. We are trying to break down these barriers through engineering to ensure that when people receive accessible care, they receive quality care.
Feedback
To ensure we are designing products that will be helpful for amputees, we need to work with amputees! If you or someone you know is an amputee who would like to work with us, please contact Kael Danicic at kdanicic@apiprosthetics.org
- Modifying the UnLimbited Arm v2.0 from Thingiverse for upper limb amputees in an attempt to improve the quality, while keeping the prosthetic as affordable as possible
- 3D Scanner research: looking into affordable 3D Scanners to build accurate 3D models of the amputated limb of amputees
- Identifying and improving sustainability of manufacturing procedures of 3D-printed prostheses
- Improving socket fit for 3D-printed prostheses
- Identifying the pipeline necessary for open-source prosthesis designs to gain FDA approval
- Conducting a Literature Review to best understand the role of 3D-printing in the field of prosthetics
- Developing a commercially viable lower limb 3D-printed prosthetic