A 7-year-old boy in Naples is getting a special Christmas present — an arm.
A team of about 20 UF engineering students are building a bionic arm for the boy for free. The group is part of the nonprofit Limbitless Solutions, which creates bionic limbs for children aged 5 and older who are missing arms or fingers.
Limbitless was started at the University of Central Florida in 2014, said Stephanie Valderrama, 22, the campaign strategist for Limbitless Solutions. The UF branch is the first chapter to open outside of UCF.
The group was started last Spring, after UF engineering students saw the UCF Limbitless chapter give a presentation at the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers’ conference at UF, said Santiago Marin, 21, who is one of the founding students of the UF chapter.
"It shouldn’t just be limited to Orlando," the UF mechanical and aerospace engineering senior said.
Over the summer, the Orlando leaders gave UF students the task of building a prototype arm, Marin said. The orange-and-blue arm, an homage to The Gator Nation, was completed on July 31.
The UF limb was created using a 3-D printer at the mechanical and aerospace engineering lab, he said. It took eight weeks to build.
The arms cost about $350 to make, Marin said.
Most bionic arms produced by private companies sell for thousands of dollars, a price many parents can’t afford when most children need a new limb every year as the children grow.
The UF arm for the 7-year-old is one of 12 that Limbitless is looking to make by Christmas, said Valderrama, a UCF graphic design senior.
The other 11 are being constructed at UCF.
Limbitless tries to customize each arm to fit the child’s personality, Valderrama said. For example, the group made an Iron Man arm for another child, Alex Pring, who was 7 when he received it.
Robert Downey Jr. gave Alex the arm.
"Seeing the child receive the arm after such a long process of making it is incredible," she said.
The rest of the arms will be ready for Christmas, she said. They will be completed by late November or early December. The group hopes to video-record the reactions of the children receiving their arms.
While Marin wouldn’t give any details on what the Naples boy’s arm will look like, he did say he and the team are going down to deliver it personally.
"I’m really looking forward to that," he said.
This bionic arm was created by UF engineering students using a 3-D printer at the mechanical and aerospace engineering lab. Santiago Marin, one of about 20 students on the team, said it cost about $350 and took eight weeks to build.
