Sterling student creates 3-D printed prosthetic for his little brother

Tuesday, Jun. 28, 2016 by Hannah Dellinger, Times-Mirror Staff Writer



Park View High School junior Cesar Filippini demonstrates how the prosthetic hand he 3-D printed for his little brother works at a media event at his school on June 28. Times-Mirror/Bill Claire

Lucas Filippini Barrera, a first-grader at Sterling Elementary School, received a special birthday surprise on June 17 — a “robot hand.”

Barrera’s older brother, Park View High School junior Cesar Filippini, designed and created a 3-D printed prosthetic hand for the 7-year-old. Filippini worked with his career and technical education teacher and used his school’s new 3-D printer to create the prosthetic over the course of four months. ... “It was a fun project to do and it made him happy, so that’s all that counts,” said Filippini during a media event at Park View Tuesday night.

The high school junior said while researching prosthetics he learned about an organization called Enabling the Future, a global network of volunteers who use 3-D printing to produce prosthetics for those in need. Filippini signed up on the organization’s waiting list in search of a volunteer to create a hand for his brother. ... After a month of waiting and not hearing anything back, a determined Filippini decided to take the project on himself.

“Out of the blue he approached me about building his brother a prosthetic hand,” said Kurt O’Connor, Filippini’s CTE teacher. “I was a little bit surprised. I’d never heard about it before. I was just starting to learn about the 3-D printer myself.” ... The two used the information and resources on Enabling the Future’s website to learn how to build the prosthetic and program it. The materials used to print the hand cost no more than $40, said O’Connor.