New for 2018 – The e-NABLE Alliance has designated FRC 1511 Rolling Thunder to be its central point of contact for any FIRST or FIRST Global team that wants to become involved with e-NABLE
E-NABLE is a growing group of over 8000 members who have come together from all over the World to help create and design 3D Printed assistive hand devices for those in need.
We are engineers, artists, makers, students, parents, occupational therapists, prosthetists, garage tinkerers, designers, teachers, creatives, philanthropists, writers and many others – who are devoting our “Free time” to the creation of open source designs for mechanical hand assistive devices that can be downloaded and 3D printed for less than $50 in materials.
Our designs are open source – so that anyone, anywhere – can download and create these hands for people who may need them and so that others can take these designs and improve upon them and once again share with the World in a “Pay it Forward” type of way.
Jen Owen is the owner, founder and primary writer of enablingthefuture.org. She has been a volunteer and participant in the field of open-source, 3D printed prosthetic hands for the past 5 years. Along the way, she has sought to highlight and document stories from the e‑NABLE Community of volunteers and to maintain an information resource for people interested in learning more about the history, design & fabrication of these devices through this website.
Ivan Owen is the original creator of the large metal puppet hand that led to him becoming the co-designer of the world’s first 3D printed mechanical hand. Instead of patenting his design, Ivan released it to the world with an open source license, and in doing so, paved the way for the creation of the e‑NABLE volunteer community. He continues to innovate and shares the e‑NABLE story as a global speaker.
In December of 2012, Liam, a young boy from South Africa, was the first child in the world to receive a 3D Printed mechanical hand. Because of his determination to “not give up” while using prototypes of the first designs, he helped to inspire the creation of the e‑NABLE Community. Because of Liam’s resilience, a global community of volunteers, creating thousands of free devices worldwide for other children like Liam, has grown into the incredible movement we now call e‑NABLE.
Maria has been an active e‑NABLE Volunteer and leader since 2014. She created the first “assembly line” model for the e‑NABLE “Hand-a-thon” team building events, brought the e‑NABLE project to scout troops around the world and is the founder of APBLS – Alliance for Project Based Learning Solutions or what we like to call “e‑NABLE Alliance,” a 501c3 non profit, which focuses on using e‑NABLE in STEM Based service learning projects and creating curriculum for research and testing on e‑NABLE 3D printed devices.