According to the World Health Organization, “only 1 in 10 people in need has access to assistive products, including prostheses and orthoses, because of their high cost and because of lack of awareness, availability, trained personnel”. There are simply not enough healthcare professionals with the time and resources to create all the needed personalized assistive devices, leading to a disparity between patients that could be helped by personalized healthcare and patients that will receive personalized healthcare. The lack of assistive devices extends heavily to the animal world: throughout the past months we had to work exceptionally hard to find shelter animals that would benefit from prosthetics. This is because animals with disabilities are often put down due to reduced adoptability, without an assistive device for mobility around these animals are very hard to care for.
Through the 3D-printing for Prosthetics DeCal, we plan to address these obstacles of high cost, lack of awareness, and most importantly, trained personnel. The course will cover the fundamentals of additive manufacturing, design considerations for prosthetics, and include a hands-on project for student teams to make prosthetics shelter animals in the Bay Area.
Animal prosthetic technology is well behind human prosthetic technology. As a result, students will have the opportunity to do a literature review of human prosthetic technology and apply these new advancements in their project when designing prosthetics for animals.
Source: https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/0288426b-1f89-4fc8-ab83-a653107a657e/content
We invite students from all backgrounds with an interest and passion for bioprinting to apply regardless of their skillsets. All majors and experience levels are welcome!
Class Info:
Goal: Make no-cost prosthetics for shelter animals in the Bay Area
Course Start Date: Monday, February 2nd
Course End Date: Wednesday, April 29th
Monday: Lab @ Studio 10C Jacobs Hall | 7:30pm – 8:30pm
Wednesday: Lecture @ 1165 Etcheverry Hall | 6:30pm – 7:30pm
Course Value: 2 units
Expected Course Workload: Attendance required with 6–8 hours per week outside of class
How to enroll:
Spring ’26 DeCal Registration is closed. Check back in Fall ’26!
