LONDON -- A Bristol-based company that creates low-cost robotic hands for amputees has announced it's collaborating with Disney on a range of new hands inspired by characters like like Queen Elsa and Iron Man.
Open Bionics, which earlier this year won the UK round of the James Dyson Award, announced on its website that Disney is giving them royalty free licenses for the new project.
"Now kids can get excited about their prosthetics," the company said on its website. "They won’t have to do boring physical therapy, they’ll train to become heroes. They’re not just getting medical devices, they’re getting bionic hands inspired by their favorite characters."
The designs announced so far are an Iron Man hand, an Elsa-inspred Snowflake hand and a Start Wars lightsaber version designed in collaboration with Lucasfilm.
Bristol-born Joel Gibbard of Open Bionics set out to make low-cost robotic hands that amputees would want to show off after he became terrified as a teenager about what would happen if he one day lost a hand.
Driven by a desire to make younger amputees proud of their differences, the 25-year-old quit his job and crowdfunded the development of a 3D printed hand, raising the money from hand amputees and their friends and families.
Open Bionics, which was co-founded by Samantha Payne, is currently being supported by Walt Disney's Techstars Accelerator mentorship and investment programme, which selects companies that have "innovative ideas for products and services in the consumer entertainment and media space."