Rice University student club builds prosthetic for Texas Children’s Hospital patient

Rice University students have teamed with a Texas Children’s Hospital doctor to help a 5-year-old boy take hold of his future.

His patient, Adriel Rivas, who was born without a left hand, now has a 3D-printed prosthetic that allows him to grip objects.

The project came to Arinze Appio-Riley, a sophomore kinesiology major who leads e-Nable, a Rice club that prints prosthetics for children and adults as part of a global network of volunteers. Appio-Riley and his sister, Rice alumna Chinwe Appio-Riley, co-founded the Rice e-Nable chapter.

The siblings asked Deirdre Hunter, a lecturer at Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, to advise the club in 2020. At about the same time, Dr. William Pederson, the head of hand and microsurgery at Texas Children’s, was considering a prosthetic for his patient and contacted her.

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