Teens give boy a helping hand

A North Carolina college student has created a prosthetic hand for kids that costs a lot less than regular models. The invention that was made using a 3D printer and has dramatically improved life for one little boy, reports CBS News correspondent Anna Werner. When I bend it like this, it opens," he said showing off the device. Like a thousand dollars. He's right. Children like Holden, born missing parts of limbs, in his case, the fingers on his left hand, often require custom prosthetic replacements costing thousands of dollars.

He extended his bulky, cream-colored prosthetic arm and pulled back, activating the clenching motion in the fingers of the artificial limb, until he got it right. Plante has Jacobsen syndrome, a condition caused by a loss of genetic material from chromosome 11, which left him with just a small cluster of fat cells below his right wrist bones. The class has designed and built an artificial hand for their neighbor to the north. Zakrajsek set the project in motion after watching a three-minute video about a father who built a robotic hand for his son using a 3-D printer.

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What do you expect to get when you give high school students access to a 3D printer? Maybe toys to tinker with during class, or a candy dispenser to keep in their locker. You probably don't imagine they'll use that technology to change a person's life. A group of high school students did just that for year-old Jayme Sims. After losing four fingers due to a wood chipper accident Sims activities became limited.