West Virginia teen builds low-cost bionic hand, selected for national science competition

Nawai has been selected as one of 30 finalists in the 2026 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge Kianoosh Nawai, an eighth-grader at West Virginia Virtual Academy, wanted to explore how technology could help people with disabilities. His project led him to design and build a 3D-printed prosthetic hand that aims to offer a lower-cost option for people who have lost a limb. Now, the project has taken him to the national stage.Nawai has been selected as one of 30 finalists in the 2026 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge, a national STEM competition for middle school students. According to Society for Science, he was the only student from West Virginia selected as a finalist from nearly 2,000 entrants across the country.His project, titled “Design, Optimization and Evaluation of a Low-Cost, Compact Bionic Hand for Functional Restoration and Accessibility,” focuses on how a prosthetic hand can reproduce some of the movements of a human hand while keeping the design more affordable. To develop it, Nawai studied how the human hand works, particularly the tendons that help the fingers flex and extend.The project also has a personal connection for him. Nawai'...