That afternoon, Firmin Forney didn't have class: the first-year student was on his third version of his "bionic arm" when he answered our call. A few days earlier, the teenager, "almost 16 years old," had sent us a "press release" that he had written himself, in which he presented, according to the rules of the art, his "new open-source bionic hand, 3D printed, designed by a high school student." Intrigued, we contacted him, and we were not disappointed.
Last summer, the man who spends all his free time making a thousand and one objects explained to us that he had "finalized the first version of "New Hand," a functional, free, and open-source bionic hand." The goal: to offer an affordable alternative for all those who cannot afford a commercial hand prosthesis, the cost of which varies "between 15,000 and 150,000 euros," he explains.
For the "New Hand" it will be necessary to invest in total nearly 60 euros with "all the components and 3D printing" to manufacture it, lists the teenager whose face is framed by imposing black glasses. The 3D plans, the code and all the components can be found on his website that he created himself and on which you can also find presentation videos… that he edited himself.
“He learns on his own and sometimes, I don’t know where he gets everything he does”
Firmin Forney is a jack of all trades: “He learns on his own and sometimes, we don’t know where he gets everything he does,” his parents, Sabrina and Fabrice Forney, say with a smile. His "creative imagination" involves coding, drawing, electronics, chemistry, DIY, and a thousand and one other things. It's quite simple, "he spends all his free time there," adds his mother. So much so that it's sometimes difficult to get this enthusiast out of his bedroom-workshop, a place where you can find "a soldering iron, recycled materials, a 3D printer he received for Christmas, chemicals, and his many ongoing projects."
"It started when he was very young," recalls his father: a fan of Lego and Kapla, Firmin made, between kindergarten and primary school, "a first box in which a piece allowed you to unlock a mechanism and access candy." He then began to "draw inventions that came out of his imagination, to dismantle everything he found: old lawnmowers, old toys", radios, remote-controlled cars, televisions, telephones... So many salvaged components that would allow him to bring his creativity to life.
"I like to understand how objects work and how they are made", adds the young man. A curiosity that today allows the budding inventor to repair the consoles and computers of his friends that break down. "He installed an arcade that he restored, set up emulators on his computer that allow you to play old video games like Double Dragon", tells us Noé, one of his friends. Although he developed a passion for cybersecurity for a while, he later returned to his first love: robotics.
First challenge: getting the fingers to close properly
A few years earlier, young Firmin had fun "building little robots with shoeboxes" equipped with "wheels, lights, and programming." But things got serious last summer. "During the summer holidays," the teenager started working on a first version of a bionic hand – a prototype for which he won "a competition last February, the Innovez competition by Sciences et Vie junior." In the meantime, the second version was already finished. It is "much more functional and usable for amputees," the young man emphasizes, adding that he relied on one of his classmates, "directly concerned" to improve certain features.
Why did he choose to embark on a bionic hand? "Perhaps because he always heard about disability at home," say his parents, both caregivers, neither of whom is passionate about electronics or robotics. While the high school student explains that he had thought about other prosthetics, such as a leg, focusing on hands seemed simpler to him, "even if it was a challenge to succeed in reproducing all the degrees of freedom of a human hand," he admits.
"I first built a hand with ice cream sticks and cardboard. And when I saw that it was usable, let's say, to grab a few objects, I said to myself that (…) by using 3D printing and slightly more advanced technologies, I could really have a hand that worked for an absolutely ridiculously low price," he recalls.
First of the difficulties: making sure the fingers closed properly. "I did a lot of tests, I worked on several versions of fingers, using different methods. It's quite complicated because it has to be the same length as a human finger. The phalanges have to bend in the same order, with the same force, it has to be precise, at the same time it has to be fast and strong. It's all a question of balance," he emphasizes. If his first two versions only have four fingers, the third will have five, he assures.
Next step: electrodes on the muscles
Then, it was necessary to "dress" the rest, to ensure that the hand was "comfortable, solid, inexpensive and easily reproducible." Regarding the control system, the high school student went from a single "small switch that detects when we move our arm away from or closer to our body" to a system that detects whether our elbow is bent or not: depending on this, the hand will open and close. The whole thing has been enhanced with a mobile application that allows it to be controlled via voice commands. But the next step will be to place electrodes on the muscles, like the prosthetics that are sold today, he enthuses. A project that will require more resources, but one that he fully intends to see through. Because he is convinced that one should never hesitate to embark on a personal project. So yes, there will always be unforeseen problems that arise, he warns. But "you have to try to solve them, never give up, and always try."
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