We’re a team of Philadelphia high school students. We 3D-print adapted toys, switches, and everyday tools, then donate them in batches to the care centers that need them. Every design is open source, and nothing we make costs the recipient a cent.
Commercial assistive devices are expensive, slow to arrive, and rarely fit the person using them. 3D printing solves the cost problem, but somebody still has to design the parts, print them, and get them into the hands of the centers that need them. That's the part we do.
Many battery-powered toys demand more fine motor control than some children have. We rewire them for standard 3.5mm assistive switches and print large, easy-press buttons, so the toy responds to whatever movement a child can make.
Switch-adapted · Built in batches for care centers
Utensil holders, zipper pulls, key turners, jar openers. Small printed tools that make daily routines manageable for people with limited grip or reach. By count, most of what we donate is in this category.
All ages · Non-medical · Printed by the dozen
A cap, a retaining ring, a base, and one off-the-shelf limit switch. Nothing exotic — that's the point.
A standard battery-powered bubble machine can’t be activated by a child with limited hand strength or fine motor control. We rewire each one with a 3.5mm jack and pair it with one of our printed activation switches. Eight of these went out in donation 001.
That’s the whole trick. The printed switch closes a circuit through a 3.5mm jack we wire into the toy, so any movement a child can make — a palm, an elbow, a head tilt against a mounted switch — becomes the button press.
If your center has a specific need, the whole process starts with an email to adaptprojectphilly@gmail.com. Your staff stays focused on patients; we handle design, fabrication, and delivery.
Most projects start with an email. A care center, clinic, or school tells us what their patients or students keep running into, and what would help.
Write to us and describe the need in plain terms. We'll work out quantities and details together over email.
We start from proven open-source designs and modify them in Onshape CAD when something doesn't fit. Printing happens in batches, with capacity from our partner university makerspaces.
Finished devices are assembled, tested, and delivered at no cost. Any design we changed along the way goes back online under Creative Commons.
Zipper pulls 9 colors | ×335 |
Universal cuffs 40 green, 1 yellow | ×41 |
3D-printed switch buttons multiple colors | ×10 |
Switch-adapted bubble machines 1 button each | ×8 |
Adapted camera toys original buttons still work | ×3 |
| Total | ×397 |
This was a personal donation to Daniel Fichter for use in his own practice. It is not a partnership with, or an endorsement by, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Filament, switches, jacks, and the toys themselves all come out of our GoFundMe. Every dollar goes into the next donation. Donation 001 was 397 devices; help us make 002 bigger.
Donate on GoFundMeEight students from seven schools across the Philadelphia area. Between us: CAD, soldering, print farming, and a lot of patience with failed first layers.
Every file we create is published openly: CAD models, print settings, and assembly notes, all under Creative Commons on Thingiverse and Printables.
That means a makerspace in rural Pennsylvania or a hospital on another continent can reproduce our work for the cost of a spool of filament. A device we adapt for one center can end up helping thousands of people we’ll never meet.
We donate to and partner with care centers, clinics, and schools around Philadelphia. If your center has a specific need, whether that’s a dozen switch-adapted toys or a few hundred zipper pulls, this is where it starts.
Adapt Project