Last week I got to spend a day at Singularity University, they were running one of their 9 day executive programs and I got an invite to come along and check it out.

Luckily I picked the day that they spent the afternoon touring IDEO‘s offices and TechShop and it was while we were at TechShop that designer Scott Summit presented the work he’s been doing in the field of 3D printing.

What blew me away was he’s been working with an above knee amputee to ‘print’ him a new leg.

Essentially they 3D scanned the guys other leg, reversed it on a computer, designed in a knee-joint and then 3D printed the entire leg as a single component!

Scott had a couple of reject/test legs that he passed around. Simply amazing. I can see how this could revolutionize prosthetic development. Whilst the leg didn’t contain fancy computer chips to control the knee, it’s apparently very functional and only cost about $5,000 to make. I’m looking forward to connecting with Scott further to explore the work he’s doing.

There was a CNET reporter at the presentation also, you can read his article online: 3D printing changing prosthetics forever