August 21, 2015
Image by Carlos Arturo Torres
Iko, a prosthetic limb designed by Carlos Arturo Torres at the Lego Future Lab, can be infinitely customized with Lego pieces. The design allows for children to swap out a 4-fingered claw-like "hand" for various Lego structures, such as a very cool digital spaceship. After meeting with an 8 year old rehab patient with a passion for drawing robots, Torres was inspired, "[The patient] was talking about the robot’s different features and pointed to a bionic eye. He said the robot built it himself because he was the only one who knew what he needed. And that was like, boom.” Adding the Lego feature to the prosthetic limb not only inspires creativity, but also confidence, as children navigate the sometimes cruel world of the schoolyard. Torres is currently donating small numbers of the prosthetic to children in Columbia, but hopes to have Iko in full-scale production by 2017, making it the first mass-produced prosthetic with a Lego element. Design to the rescue!