ebuilding fine motor skills after a stroke takes intensive therapy that requires repeated attempts to use the affected hand, several times a day, day after day. Some therapies involve moving the affected fingers with the other hand until new brain pathways for hand control develop. Zain Samdani, a 16-year-old from Saudi Arabia and a finalist in the 2016 Google Science Fair, demonstrated a different approach at the finalist showcase on Tuesday.

Samdani, who says he’d seen family members struggling with hand rehab, built an exoskeleton out of 3D-printed segments. He connected that to a glove that he wired to control the robotic device. The patient, he says,…[Read more]