On July 18, 2018, I suffered a spinal cord injury in my neck that impacted along with everything generally my ulnar nerve specifically. My hands still both feel very sore and pain still look lurks between periods of calm. I am extremely fortunate, my permanent prognosis is good, and I am grateful for the care and support I received from MetroHealth Medical System. I returned to work at Cuyahoga Community College in October 2018 and my recovery is progressing nicely.
As I got myself back into the swing of things at work and at home, I was able to take advantage of a 3-D printer that is available in my library at the metro campus. Playing guitar is one of the safer hobbies that I have but one result of my injury was that I could not securely hold a guitar pick for very long. Using free software online (https://www.tinkercad.com) I designed a very simple guitar pick that includes a curved handle that allows me to keep the pic stable in my hand using all of my fingers and my palm.
The design took a couple of tries before I got the angle correct but it is but it was very easy to do as I simply took an existing open-source design (found on https://www.thingiverse.com) for a pick and combined it with a short handle that’s curved to fit between my fingers and palm. Overall the pick works very well and because of it, I am able to annoy my family and neighbors once again.
If there is some sort of tool that I could help you design and/or print please let me know, my information will be below. Cleveland public library‘s main branch also has a “maker station” that is open to the public which you can find more information from this website: https://cpl.org/subjectscollections/techcentral/makerspace/.
Daniel Overfield
