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12/22/2024 08:40:08 pm

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New Lego Prosthetics Technology Enables Kids To Make Own Limbs

Prosthetic Arm

(Photo : Getty Images/ Oli Scarff) The Lego-compatible prosthetic arm lets kids design their own hand for their own comfort.

The prosthetic arm that can be fitted with Lego bricks is known as Iko. The Lego-compatible prosthetic arm lets kids design their own hand for their own comfort.

The person who created the said prosthetic arm project is Carlos Arturo Torres, of the Umea Institute of Design in Sweden. He wants the world to know that he and his team can do a lot more than just look nifty and flash LEDs.

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Torres designed Iko for his final project at university in 2014; it's a prosthetic arm for children that also acts as a platform for creative Lego projects, according to CNet.

Torres wanted to fight disability stigmas using Legos because he grew up in a war-torn country, which is Colombia. There, he witnessed firsthand how an armed conflict can destroy civilian lives.

One of the kids Torres helped at the time was a Colombian boy named Dario, who was born with a congenital malformation in his right forearm. Because of his condition he was required to wear a prosthetic arm.

While Dario was born with his condition, there are other children in Colombia who are permanently injured by land mines and other collateral damage from the war each year, Upworthy reports.

In his thesis at Sweden's Umea Institute of Design, Torres said, "The needs of a disabled child are many of course. The physiological needs of replacing a lost part of their body is one of the priorities, but taking a look at this phenomena through the eyes of the armed conflict shows that the psychosocial needs are a big part of a person in disability."

The project made by Torres and his team was awarded the prize for Open Design Student in the 2015 Core77 Design Awards earlier this month, Yahoo Tech has learned.

According to Yahoo Tech, discussing the reason behind his thesis, Torres wrote: "The needs of a kid in disability are not always related to physical activity but often alternatively the social and psychological aspect; sometimes a functional element is everything they need, but some other times it might be a spaceship, or a doll house, or a telescope, or a video game controller."

He added that if kids use their own imagination to create their own prosthetics, they will have the freedom to choose their own tools according to what they need while letting them hone their creativity and enjoy their time as kids.

Iko was made and designed so that children can collaborate and bond with each other, and not only to help them manage their disabilities, but to also let them feel that they are not isolated and different because of the prosthetics they use, as per CNet.

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