David Aguilar, 19, was born without his right forearm due to a rare congenital abnormality. So instead of him, he decided to make himself a robotic prosthetic arm using Lego bricks.
Aguilar, who is studying bioengineering at the International University of Catalonia (UIC), is already on his fourth colored arm model and his dream is to design affordable prostheses for those who need them.
Once his favorite toys, the colored plastic pieces became the building material for Aguilar’s first artificial arm, still very rudimentary, when he was 9 years old, and each new version has more movement capacity than the previous one.
“When I was little I was very nervous being with other children, because it was different, but that didn’t stop me from believing in my dreams,” Aguilar, who was born in the small principality of Andorra, told Reuters.
“I wanted … to see myself in the mirror like I see other kids, with two hands,” said Aguilar, who uses the artificial arm only occasionally and is self-sufficient without it.
The young man shows all the versions of the prosthesis in his room at the university residence where he lives on the outskirts of Barcelona. The latest models are marked with MK followed by a number: a comic tribute to Iron Man and his Mark (MK) armor suits.
Aguilar, who uses Legos given to him by a friend, proudly displayed a fully functional red and yellow robotic arm, built when he was 18, capable of bending at the elbow joint thanks to a small electric motor.
In a video presenting his YouTube channel, which he manages under the nickname ‘Hand Solo’, he says that his goal is to show people that nothing is impossible and that disability cannot be a brake.
After college, he wants to create affordable prosthetic solutions for people in need.
“I would try to give them a prosthesis, even for free, to make them feel like a normal person, because what is normal, right?”
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