Mohd Akmal Danial Mohd Hassan, 13, was all smiles as he lifted a bottle of water to a group of reporters at his kampung house in Balik Pulau, Penang.
Danial was born with a hand deformity, that left him with stubby, short fingers on his right hand.
Now, thanks to a pink and white-coloured artificial hand made using plastic bits and rubber bands, he can even move his “fingers” with ease.
“I can grab bigger things now. I used to carry light and small items on my right hand, but it often slipped out.
“I just can’t wait to go back to school and shake hands with my friends,” Danial said when met at his home in Sungai Rusa, some 10km from Balik Pulau town.
The movement was made possible through mounts on his knuckles, which enabled him to wiggle his new “fingers”.
The Form One boy from SMK St George’s Balik Pulau has been left-handed all his life, but despite his shortcomings, he still offers his hands to “salam” (greet) strangers and family.
Danial’s father, Mohd Hassan Ahmad, 64, was not present at the event yesterday as he was undergoing a bypass surgery at the National Heart Institute (IJN) in Kuala Lumpur.
Danial’s mother, Rahana Kechut, 56, was in awe of his new artificial hand.
“Alhamdulillah. Although born with a disability, Danial is a very positive minded boy, obedient and very popular among his friends in school. This would make him more confident among his peers,” Rahana said.
The man behind the artificial hand is former school teacher turned artificial limbs maker, Sujana Mohd Rejab, 48, from Taiping, Perak.
Sujana, who runs a home-based outfit making artificial hands using his 3D printer, heard about Danial’s condition from a school teacher two years ago.
No engineering background
Sujana had so far been helping those with limb disabilities on a case to case basis, as he operates alone.
What was even more surprising, is that he has no engineering background and had learnt to build mechanical arms using open source guides online.
“I must profess, I am a graduate of University of Google and YouTube.
“And thanks to kind donations from ‘hamba Allah’ and the public for my research and development work, I managed to help people with disabilities,” he said.
Sujana said he does not want to put a price tag on what he was doing, but said it doesn’t cost much compared with prosthetic arms, which are being sold for more than RM20,000 each.
He takes a small fee for each limb for those who could pay and has donated over 300 limbs all over the world, even to countries in the Middle-East.
He said an artificial hand, such as that made for Danial, would usually take a day to print using a 3D printer, and about a day and a half to assemble.
Sujana said the hand given to Danial was the most basic mechanical model, using plastic parts and rubber bands.
He has also built a prototype of a voice-activated arm and another purely using “brain signals”.
“Right now, it is being tested in Nepal and an African nation. I am happy to report that it is working extremely well. There are some improvements that can be done, I feel,” Sujana said without elaborating.
He said he has two artificial hands that are available. The one that is being used by Danial is purely mechanical, another model uses muscle control through a person’s biceps.
“Perhaps in a couple of years, I will fit the brain-control artificial hand for Danial. The current hand would serve as training.”
Sujana, who studied at King Edward VII school in Taiping, said he had a simple outfit at home to construct such limbs.
He said he has a computer with CAD software and a 3D printer, for which he spent about RM5,000 to kick-start his project.
Sujana said he had gone for programming courses in Kuala Lumpur before and put it to good use.