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College Lab Makes 3D Printed Arms to Help 12-Year-old Amputee Reach Her Drumming Goals By Andy Corbley
Jun 19, 2024
"12-year-old Aubrey Sauvie never let her lack of hands interfere with the pursuit of her interests, whether that was Tae Kwon Do, art, or doing her own makeup.
Born a triple congenital amputee and missing both arms from below the elbows and several toes on one of her feet, it was from a very early age that she demonstrated to her family that there’d be very little necessity to accommodate her.
“It’s just one part of me,” Aubrey Sauvie told WKRN. “It doesn’t make me, me. It definitely was a challenge to learn, but as time went on, it became easier and easier until it wasn’t difficult at all.”
Indeed the family photo album is packed with pictures of her in dance competitions, breaking boards with a flying side-kick, or lined up in front of her snare drum with her school band, the drumsticks stuck in the creases of her elbows.
But that’s where even her dexterity and determination couldn’t succeed in producing the results she wanted—the sound of the snare just wasn’t right.
Aubrey’s middle school band teacher recommended her as a candidate for the Tennessee Tech University program, Engineering for Kids, where 10 students decided to make it a class project to create a pair of custom prosthetics so the firebrand could play the drums.
“So she plays the drums; does she also play the mallets?” Tennessee Tech mechanical engineering student Zakary Henson told the ABC affiliate as he recalled his thought process. “Does she play a xylophone? Something like that. So like is it going to have to have different handles? How is it going to be secured to the hand? All of these are questions we are thinking through.”
The solution as they saw it was a 3D-printed pair of durable yet flexible customized prosthetics with interchangeable grips, something which Tennessee Tech Professor of Mechanical Engineering Stephen Canfield said was a one in a million shot."
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College Lab Makes 3D Printed Arms to Help 12-Year-old Amputee Reach Her Drumming Goals
Even Aubrey's dexterity and determination couldn't succeed in producing the results she wanted—the sound of the snare just wasn't right
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