Before I lost my hand I loved to ride my Suzuki GSX-R750, amazing bike.

I used to have an earlier model back in the UK and bought another one in 2005 after getting my bike license in the US.

After I lost my hand I sold my bike and bought a Toyota Prius instead, great for my 90 mile commute, but not quite the same acceleration. I’d always said that one day I’d get back on a bike again.

Well at the weekend I finally did, although not quite what I had envisaged (need to be more specific on that old goal setting thing). We had a BBQ at my brother’s place on Sunday here in the UK to celebrate Kerry’s birthday, had some old friend’s around who we haven’t seen for a good few years and there were a number of children in attendance. Unbeknownst to me Sean had a little petrol powered kiddies bike…well, can’t say no to that. So after the children had all had a go it was my turn, i-Limb hand, bike and me. Look at that smile!

I happened to be in Scotland last week on a trip and thought I’d drop in to TouchBionics, the company that makes my i-Limb hand, who are based there.

They very kindly let me spend the afternoon with them talking about my experiences with my hand, allowing me to play with their new i-Limb Pulse hand and touring the production area where the i-Limb hands are built.

They had a very cool display in their production area that shows an i-Limb hand exploded apart so you can see all the components that go into making it, I though it was very cool at least.

It was funny, the production area just looked like a regular office, I was expecting something more industrial I guess, but no, it’s 6 people sitting in an office environment, working on different parts of the assembly and testing process. Apparently it takes about 8 hrs or so to assembly and test a hand.

TouchBionics have just released their next generation i-Limb hand, called the Pulse and I had a chance to try it out. It’s got a number of innovations, one that gives it its name is the ability to pulse the motors in the fingers when gripping something to increase the grip strength. It seems pretty effective, I tried it by holding my own arm and as the motors pulsed for a couple of seconds you could feel the grip ratcheting down.

The hand is also programmable/configurable via bluetooth. They have software that you can install that connects to the hand real-time and allows you to adjust the way the hand works. This would allow me to program different grip patterns and the way they are triggered. So for example, I could configure it to close all fingers except the thumb and first finger, which I would then be able to open and close, useful for working on more intricate things or typing on a keyboard. I can also program different delays, triggers or sensitivity thresholds for the fingers. The hand is a fraction lighter, more slimline and much, much stronger, the knuckles of the fingers are now made from aluminium instead of plastic. All-in-all I love the developments and can’t wait to get my hand (excuse the pun) on one.

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