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OK. Can you just slide your hand through that? OK. Perfect!
Can you grab my hand with it, or not? Oh wow, that's pretty cool.
Do it one more time. Ah, cool.
I said I've got to do something because I can help.
So, you want to try it out? Yeah? OK!
I saw all these videos of kids picking up stuff and I thought it'd be cool.
That's good!
I tell all of my students that we can change the world; we can do something important;
we can do something impactful. And they come in and they're just ready to jump in and try
something new.
Shea and her class have come and visited our class and we get to talk to her and interact
with her and it's really cool to see her put on the hands that we've designed and use them
and really react to that.
What I really want to do is to streamline everything and make it so it's actually the
same size as her other hand so it feels like it fits and it's a functional part of her
body.
I knew that they would come up with better ideas than I could come up with because that
is what our young people and our students do here at UWM. They come up with ideas that
are grand and that brings a richness to the project that I can't. I'm too old in some
ways to do that, to have a fresh perspective.
None of the students have ever 3-D printed. None. And so that entire production process
is different. None of them have ever used a foam cutter. So it's a really fun thing
to see them all out of their element but willing to work together and help each other.
There's a Google+ community called E-Nable and E-Nable is a group of about 400 members.
I can talk to people from around the world, I can download the files for (the hands).
We had our students join E-Nable and almost immediately people who I would be intimidated
to talk to at first would chime in on their sketches and their ideas. And the students,
you could just see, they came in and they were proud of the fact that they were part
of this and I think that that's really empowering.
I think just that rapid pace with which we can develop and research, it's wonderful,
it's marvelous.
Pull them out and stick them on the finger that you want them.
I don't think there are a lot other kids out there who can say that they get to be a part
of making their own hand and give feedback back and can have choices. Just seeing her
joy - as a mom that's all you want is for your kids to be happy.
Have you ever seen a laser cutter work? It's pretty fun.
They're the ones who can sit here and spend hours and hours and hours away from their
families working on stuff. It's just absolutely incredible, absolutely incredible. It leaves
us speechless.
Is that too tight or are you OK? It's OK? OK.
Yes, Frankie and I are giving them these hands and sort of gifting them with our work, but
I think in a real way they are giving us the bigger gift. This is the type of opportunity
that lets you re-fall in love with a discipline.
Would that be cool? Put little charms in there?
There's so much more we can do. There are so many more problems to solve. Being here
and being able to engage with our students to do that, that's the greatest job in the world.