{"id":20793,"date":"2015-05-15T14:26:03","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T14:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/?p=20793"},"modified":"2017-04-17T12:48:33","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T16:48:33","slug":"3d-printing-veterans-a-better-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/3d-printing-veterans-a-better-life","title":{"rendered":"3D Printing + Veterans = A Better Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-rotary-mount.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-20794\" alt=\"3D printed rotary mount\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-rotary-mount-523x500.jpeg\" width=\"523\" height=\"500\" data-wp-pid=\"20794\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-rotary-mount-523x500.jpeg 523w, https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-rotary-mount-282x270.jpeg 282w, https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-rotary-mount.jpeg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 523px) 100vw, 523px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Today the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is launching a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.innovation.va.gov\/challenge\/\"> challenge initiative<\/a> to help improve prosthetics and assistive technologies. \u00a0As part of the Innovation Creation Series Challenge, the VA is pushing for rapid innovation around the development of personalized technologies to improve care and quality of life for Veterans. \u00a0Of course, when you hear personalization and innovation you know 3D printing can\u2019t be far behind.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The goal of the initiative is to use 3D printing and distributed creation to contribute to an open ecosystem of prosthetics and other assistive technologies. \u00a0Think of an entire universe of<a href=\"http:\/\/enablingthefuture.org\/\"> e-nable<\/a> type devices and prosthetics for people with disabilities and \u00a0you can begin to imagine why this is a big deal.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-device.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-20795\" alt=\"3D printed device\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-device-625x351.jpg\" width=\"625\" height=\"351\" data-wp-pid=\"20795\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-device-625x351.jpg 625w, https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-device-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-device-400x225.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-device-800x450.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The VA has rolled out a list of specific challenges to kickstart the initiative:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Develop novel upper and lower extremity devices at the end of the prothesis for daily use.<\/li>\n<li>Create a medication pill box that allows the flexibility to hold medications that need to be taken up to 8 times a day with a reminder system for each time medication needs to be taken.<\/li>\n<li>Create a device that can dampen tremor when a Veteran is performing fine motor tasks.<\/li>\n<li>Design a device to remotely change the speed and grip strength of a prosthetic device for our Veterans with upper extremity injuries.<\/li>\n<li>Create a way to reassign motions and buttons on the Nintendo Wii controller to allow for alternative methods of access to games for Veterans with physical disabilities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The entire challenge is running on an accelerated timeline designed to turn ideas into reality as quickly as possible. \u00a0After launching today, collaborators and participants will work together to create, refine, and improve designs through May, June, and July. \u00a0The challenge ends with a two-day makeathon on July 28th and 29th at the Hunter Holmes VA Medical Center in Richmond, VA.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">These types of challenges help showcase the best of 3D printing\u2019s potential to make the world a better place. \u00a0If you want to get involved, make sure to head over to the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.innovation.va.gov\/challenge\/\"> challenge website<\/a>. \u00a0And if you do get involved,<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mweinberg2d\"> tweet at me<\/a> to let me know how it goes!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is launching a challenge initiative to help improve prosthetics and assistive technologies. \u00a0As&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":20794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[510],"tags":[515,559],"class_list":["post-20793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3d-printing-industry","tag-41-events","tag-inspiration"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/3D-printed-rotary-mount.jpeg","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>3D Printing + Veterans = A Better Life - Shapeways Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is launching a challenge initiative to help improve prosthetics and assistive technologies. \u00a0As part of the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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