Eilidh is the Studio Manager at Aberdeen’s digital fabrication studio – MAKE. She was diagnosed with scoliosis aged 6 and later, at university, was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis that affects her spine and joints.

Eilidh studied Three-Dimensional Design at Robert Gordon University’s (RGU) Gray’s School of Art, and she always knew she was interested in combining new technologies and crafts-based skills. At the same time, she’s always had this urge to help other people fueled by her own health struggles.

She completed a 5-month placement in Canada helping to design and 3D print prosthetics for the Global South. Back in Aberdeen she continued her research on 3D printing and prosthetics, and she developed a silicone and spring steel casing that goes over a prosthetic arm. The material feels like skin, meaning that a prosthetic limb encased in it feels more like a real arm, not just an inanimate object. This in turn has real potential to help sufferers of phantom limb disorder (a painful sensation that an amputated limb is still attached).

But the project also had a different, more aesthetic, side to it, as the casing can be personalised – what Eilidh calls ‘pimping up your prosthetic’. Eilidh recognised that wearing a prosthetic limb could feel really alienating, and she wanted to do something to challenge that. She continues to work on her project in her new role as Studio Manager at Aberdeen’s digital fabrication studio – MAKE, and she also loves helping other students to develop their projects.