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On-campus club hosts event displaying prosthetic devices made with 3D printers

Shane Foley
Connector Edtior

eNABLE Lowell is a chapter of the eNABLE Community Foundation that has, quite frankly, been hard at work for six months. Since their start up in October 2015, they have operated without aid to deliver low cost prosthetics to children in need. That all ends this Sunday at noon, however, because the eNABLE Community Foundation is hosting an Eastern Mass Regional Meet-Up right here in Falmouth 102. The event is also open to the public, so students can learn more about eNABLE and prosthetics in general.

The goal of the eNABLE Community Foundation is to deliver prosthetic devices to children in need who cannot afford traditional prosthetics. The eNABLE chapters, when contacted, can deliver a device free of charge within a short time frame. They do so, however, through the usage of 3d printers.
Peter Larsen, an eNABLE Lowell member who will be speaking at the event, explained briefly the convenience of using these 3d printers. “The designs are open source,” said Larsen. “They’re free to download off the internet. If you have a 3d printer, you want to do it, you can go to the Enable Community Foundation website, and you can find the designs and download them yourself.”
Aside from the Lowell Chapter, this event will host eNABLE chapters from universities such as Merrimack, WPI, Brandice, and even Sienna from upstate New York. “We’re trying to get people together to swap stories, to network a little bit, [and] really trying to get these groups that have been spread out in the organization together in one room to get to know each other, to build kind of a regional network,” said Larsen. “We’re really trying to build a better system.”
Speaking at this event will not only be Larsen, but also Brian Fountaine, as student from Northeastern University who lost both legs above the knees serving our country in Iraq. He has since devoted his efforts to using these 3d printers to make accurate prosthetics. Following the speakers will be an open demo for students to observe some models of eNABLE products

.Not only will this event serve as an opportunity for students to learn more about prosthetics, but it also will be a chance to establish better communication between the chapters themselves. While they all are under the eNABLE Community Foundation name, they rarely get the chance to meet with each other to compare their models and things of that nature.
According to Larsen, this process of making a solitary effort to create these prosthetics can be quite arduous. “Someone says ‘hey I have a 3d printer. I’m willing to help.’ Then, the center organization, the Enable Community Foundation, matches them with a child in need, but effectively that person is working alone,” said Larsen. “They have to do their own troubleshooting and figure all their stuff out. So, the advantage of working in the chapter is to have this kind of collaboration, and then to have better communication with other chapters that may have had very different solutions to the same problems that we’re having is awesome.”
The event will run from 12:00pm to 5:00p.m. and is free of admission.
“There have been other events like this around the country, but not in this region with this group,” said Larsen.

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