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KC college makes prosthetic hand using 3-D printer for 3-year-old

Posted at 4:44 PM, Jul 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-07-12 19:29:09-04

Without a left hand, it's been difficult for Hudson Borton to learn how to ride his new bike. However, with some help from his father and some innovative ingenuity from a local college, the 3-year-old is peddling as quickly as any other kid on the block.

"You have a top and a bottom that hold onto the grip and then the third part is a ball joint," said Nick Borton, Hudson's father, while describing the new prosthetic. 

Nick Borton said he's "blown away" by the final product. It was just one month ago he reached out to a group at Metropolitan Community College because he heard they had a 3-D printing lab. He called them to offer some ideas that could help his son. 

"We weren't 100 percent sure we could do it right away. But we knew we were going to do this one way or the other," said Mike Cline, engineer and technology coordinator at MCC.

But Cline soon made it a student-driven project and very quickly had a prototype built. It was just weeks later they had a prosthetic hand Hudson could use for his bike. And all of it was created with a 3-D printer. 

"It was a very fulfilling thing for me watching, watching their reactions knowing we just changed Hudson's bike riding, his life, pretty much," said Cline.

Nick Borton says "the future is here."

"It can change people's lives and enable him to be able to do what we he wants," he said. 

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Josh Helmuth can be reached at josh.helmuth@kshb.com

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