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How a 3D Printer Let a Dog Run For the First Time
Nerval's Lobster writes Ever since 3-D printing began to enter the mainstream, people have discussed the technology's potential for building prosthetic arms and legs for human beings. But what about doing the same for dogs? In one of those videos that ends up circulated endlessly on the Internet, a dog named Derby, born with a congenital deformity that deprived him of front paws, is outfitted with a pair of 3-D-printed prosthetics. With those "legs" in place, the dog can run for the first time, at a pretty good clip. Both the prosthetics and the video were produced by 3D Systems, which builds 3-D printers, and it seems likely that other 3-D-printing companies will explore the possibility of printing off parts for pets. And while the idea of a cyborg pooch is heartwarming, it will be interesting to see how 3D printers will continue to advance the realm of human prosthetics, which have become increasingly sophisticated over the past decade.
human prosthetics, which have become increasingly sophisticated over the past decade.
Nothing new here, they've been rapidly improving for at least half a century now.
It's what he's always wanted.
Who let the dogs out? The 3D printer did.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Finally we know answer for question "Who let the dogs out ?!" ..
Grandpa, how could they make anything before there were 3D printers?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And it doesn't even mention 'climate change'! What's it doing on Slashdot?
The point is that the technology has advanced to the point that people can help a dog. This in itself is not much of an advance, but it demonstrates some of the potential of the advances that are being made. Oncethe cost of technology is reduced and it becomes more readlily available people do cool stuff and sometimes help someone or something else. Sometimes people just do cool stuff with technology. Now turn in your geek card since you cannot simply enjoy something cool that is also helpful for a dog.
Why couldn't they just carve it out of foam, then mould that into plastic.. its not that hard, really....
Your snark reinforces my questions about using any of the current offerings whose price doesn't require mortgaging the house. And I have so many questions that go unanswered. For example, what's the print speed in terms of volume e.g. cubic millimeters per second? And I had to scoff/chuckle at CubeX who won't tell you exactly how much material is in one of their cartridges. When I asked, they said "Oh, you can print about 75 cellphone cases." WTF? A cellphone case is not a standardized unit of measure, doofus.
For me, the killer app is printing custom PCB enclosures. Makes you wonder why COTS embedded computer manufacturers don't have a meeting with companies like Hammond to make enclosures that fit (and skip the fancy styling because that stuff isn't going to sit on a shelf). But I digress. So I want to print enclosures but my concern is that they take a day to print and the print fails 8 hours in. My other concern is that they look like crap on the outside. People are buying home frying machines, filling them with acetone, and dunking their prints in hot acetone to smooth the layers. Beyond that, you have to wonder when Makerbot comes out with a failed print shredding machine so you can recycle the plastic into new filament.
The point is that the technology has advanced to the point that people can help a dog. This in itself is not much of an advance, but it demonstrates some of the potential of the advances that are being made. Oncethe cost of technology is reduced and it becomes more readlily available people do cool stuff and sometimes help someone or something else. Sometimes people just do cool stuff with technology. Now turn in your geek card since you cannot simply enjoy something cool that is also helpful for a dog.
Advanced to what point? 3D prototyping isn't new. Animal prosthetics isn't new. Deciding a single hunk of extruded plastic is good enough to strap directly on a dog isn't a huge accomplishment. Dogs don't complaint about lack of comfort...
This story bugs me, not the tech.
It skips the whole development and production cost angle of 3D proto^H^H^H^H^Hmanufacturing, which in my opinion is the most important part.
The pet owner didn't call up Pet Legs R' Us and order an affordable custom prostheses which was promptly delivered. THAT would be a story worth telling, how 3D printing enabled a business and service like that. Such a business would, we should hope, understand each animal's range of motion well, and the bigger picture, quality of life. How good are new legs if we screw up their spine in a year?
This story is more about some goodwill from people running a 3D fab shop. They should get some presents from Santa this year, but it's a really crappy tech story.
While we're just giving things away, an even better story would be a shop milling a prosthesis out of solid titanium - because that is more difficult, expensive, and awesome than plastic. Could we run that story as "How a CNC mill Let a Dog Run for the First Time"?
"This story bugs me, not the tech."
Hmm, that got me banned from Fark....
-QA
Put yourself out of our misery.
When the need for glasses came upon me 7 years ago i requested a hanger implant to function as ear for one that was lost 30 years earlier. Now can create as needed via 3D printer. The artist now works the UW dept on several projects after this revelation. Easy to fire up and have huge gauges, Vulcan, Romulan etc ears.
3D Printing is the new tool today, helping dogs and cats is just to awesome!