In life, it is always good to look back at where things began otherwise how else can you see how far you have come?

Our story began all the way back in December 2014.

The global community, e-Nable, brought Steve Davies and Drew Murray together. Their partnership led to a game-changing invention - a 3D printed left hand and a hand that would be the first of many to help those across the world’s upper limb difference community.

Then in February 2015, Drew delivered an arm to Eden, from Manchester. There were plenty of smiles that day as Eden was over the moon with her new hand.

Fast forward to July that year when Steve designed and created a 3D printed arm for 7-year-old Isabella, from Bristol.

This was the arm that changed it all.

In August 2015 Steve and Drew decide to make their partnership official, and Team UnLimbited was born.

By time September 2015 came around, Steve and Drew had created the world’s first thermo-formed 3D printable arm. The arm was named after its first recipient, the Isabella Edition.

In November 2015, a viral video of Isabella receiving her device had over 3 million views on YouTube. Team UnLimbited had taken the world by storm and made global news headlines. We even appeared in Google’s Year of Search 2015 and Channel 4’s Rio Paralympics TV ads.

2015 was a very busy year and things didn’t stop there. Steve and Drew kept creating arms and helping people.

In 2018 Team UnLimbited became an officially registered charity committed to designing, developing, building and distributing open-source 3D printed assistive devices for people with an upper limb difference.

In 2019, we designed and created 12 new arms for recipients between 6 and 72 years old. These arms including a rainbow arm for Lottie, a Manchester United arm for Ted and a bright ‘always believe’ arm for Alisha.

We ran an UnLimbited Baking Competition with the famous baker Briony May. The winner design was baked by Briony herself! Doesn’t it look delicious!

Baker, Briony May and a stunning chocolate cake

If that wasn’t enough, we had our own permanent display erected at the London Science Museum. Our Isabella Edition arm is still on display in the Science Museum’s Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries to this day. We are incredibly proud of this achievement.

2020 came around and despite being an incredibly challenging year for all, we were still able to help lots of people.

When the pandemic began our machines printed 3D face shields and protective devices. By May, we had printed more than 1,100 face shields and protective devices! We are proud to be part of the international 3D printing community and we’re glad to help our local superheroes in a different way.

2020 was also the year that Steve was honoured with a British Empire Medal for his innovation and ongoing contribution to the limb difference community.

That was not the only award Steve got to cherish that year. Team UnLimbited won the Alex Moulton Award. This was awarded to us by the Institution of Engineering Designers (IED) for our work on 3D printed arms and hands.

2021 is already proving to be another great year for Team UnLimbited. We made Charlie an awesome Juventus Arm for starters!

We also saw our blueprints featured in the world’s media! Daniel Grant, a design and technology teacher from Bradfield School in Sheffield used our designs to create an amazing Iron Man arm for 12-year-old, Lewis McCaslin. The story was picked up and published on Yahoo, in The Mirror, The Sun, The Star, and even had a segment on ITV news.

It is amazing to think that this all began with a helping hand back in 2014. We have helped so many people since then and we can’t wait to help even more.

If you would like to support us on our mission to help even more people, you can donate here.

Remember when it all started with a helping hand

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