A group of Kiwi teens are making a difference by building an affordable prosthetic arm for a 3-year-old girl.
Scots College students Locky Stinson, Liam Frampton and Ben Trolove decided to make the arm after they met its recipient at a school open day.
"It's for a girl called Avery who is three years old and she's missing a limb," Ben told The AM Show on Thursday.
"We met her at an open day… Her family came to us because we were presenting the prototype of our prosthetic arm."
The toddler was born with only a partial left arm and struggles with things like balance and everyday activities. She has a prosthetic arm but it's too small and a replacement would cost anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000.
Liam said prosthetic arms are extremely hard to get for young people and end up being incredibly expensive because they need to be replaced as they grow. He said creating an executable arm that can grow with Avery solves that.
"It's very difficult to get prosthetic arms, especially for young kids when they are growing so much...It's a very expensive investment to make when the kid is still young, when they could have something like this and then grow into an arm given by the National Limb Centre," he said.
The prosthetic arm uses sensors that react when Avery tenses her muscles.
"It has EMG sensors and they attach around her stump so when she tenses her muscle she's able to open and close her hand," Ben said.
But it wasn't all smooth sailing, Liam said they went through 12 different prototypes before creating the final prosthetic. Initially, the arm was mechanical and had to be manually opened.
Ben said the arm will allow Avery to participate in normal kid activities like riding her bike.
"It will help her to do kid things again like riding bikes, playing with toys, picking up cups hopefully soon."
Locky said the group were initially hoping for $800 to help their project but donations on their Givealittle page smashed all expectations. The page has now raised more than $3000.
The extra money will be used to further develop and improve Avery's bionic arm.
