High school students build prosthetic arm for Indiana girl
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) – A 9-year-old South Bend girl has a new prosthetic arm thanks to Penn High School engineering students who worked all semester on a robotics project.
Grace Hildreth was born without half of her right arm, and has been limited for most of her life because her parents couldn’t afford to buy an expensive prosthetic arm. But all of that changed when the group of students connected with the family to create the artificial limb using primarily 3-D printers and plastic components.
Now she can shake hands and is looking forward to playing on the monkey bars.
More than 200 filled the high school’s auditorium Wednesday to watch Grace demonstrate her new arm. A student-made film documenting the project also was shown.