A robotics company specialized in bionic arms has created the World’s first kid-friendly prosthetic hands based on popular superheroes and movie characters. The company, called Open Bionics, is based in UK and creates 3D printed robotic hands, making them more affordable for amputees.
The designers teamed up with the Walt Disney Company who provides a royalty-free license to use their popular assets, like movie characters. During the Disney Accelerator Demo Day, Open Bionics revealed the first three designs for the bionic arms: Tony Stark’s / Iron Man bionic hand, Elsa’s sparkly hand from Disney’s Frozen and a Star Wars lightsaber hand, equipped with the popular sound.
The Disney Accelerator program and Techstars, a team of tech geeks are providing funding, tech support and mentorship for startups in the tech world. Open Bionics’ CEO, Joel Gibbard is thrilled that his company made such a successful approach in prosthetic hand designing. The bionic arms are an opportunity for kids not only to have a new arm, but to be a superhero.
“The power of these prosthetics is that the public perception is completely different. All of a sudden they’re not being asked how they lost their hand, they’re being asked where they got their cool robot hand, how does it feel, and how does it work? It completely flips the perception 180 degrees. What might have been perceived as their greatest weakness is seen as their greatest strength,” said Gibbard.
The company already has several requests for the lightsabre bionic arms and some of them are from grownups. Because of the 3D printing technology, the superhero hands will cost less than a regular prosthetic hand, just under $3000 dollars. The bionic arms will be on sale in less than year and the creators said that more cool designs are coming soon.
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