Student 3D-printed his own braces and saved around $7,950
Časi: postavi glagol v oklepaju v pravilno obliko.
A digital design student has managed to sort out his crooked top teeth by 3D-printing his own brace, saving an estimated $7,950 (£5,485) in the process.
Twenty-three-year-old Amos Dudley realised last year that he wasn’t smiling so much because he was unhappy with his teeth. Although he ____________________ (1 HAVE) a brace when he was younger, he hadn’t worn his retainer as he ____________________ (2 SHOULD/DO), so the teeth moved again.
‘They weren’t awful, but they were crooked enough ____________________ (3 MAKE) me self conscious,’ he writes on his blog.
He started to look into clear braces online. But, as he did his research, he noticed that many of the braces from companies such as Invasalign, which cost up to $8,000, looked like something that ____________________ (4 COULD MAKE) on a 3D printer.
A 3D printer was something he just so happened to have access to at his school, the New Jersey Institute of Technology. ‘What is to stop someone, who has access to a 3D printer, from ____________________ (5 CREATE) their own orthodontic aligners?’ he asked.
Well, not much, except the very real fear that you could totally mess up your teeth if you ____________________ (6 DO) something wrong (he prefaces his blog post with this disclaimer: ‘Do not attempt anything written here; I assume no liability for any actions you take to modify your body.’)
Which is why Amos did a LOT of research first. He used the equipment at school to scan and print models of his teeth. He worked out how much his teeth needed to move in total to correct the misalignment, and what that would mean split into 12 stages.
He eventually 3D-printed his own set of 12 clear plastic braces, which he estimated he woud need to wear for 16 weeks, for less than $60 (£40).
He realised his plan might just work the day he put the first aligner in his mouth. ‘I could feel which tooth it ____________________ (7 PUT) pressure when it was on,’ he told CNN Money. ‘I was sort of worried about accumulated error, but that wasn’t the case so that was a pretty glorious moment.’
He’s now on his final aligner. ‘Quite a bit better, I think!’ he writes, explaining: ‘ I ____________________ (8 USE) them all day and all night for 16 weeks, only taking them out to eat.’ He’s also planning to print himself some retainers, which, according to his decision, he ____________________ (9 WEAR) at night ’till I die’.
‘I feel like I can freely smile again. That’s what’s most important,’ he concludes.
Okay, so we totally ____________________ (10 NOT RECOMMEND) anyone to try this at home, but, seriously, wow.
(Adapted from metro.co.uk, 18 March 2016)
