Imagine that you hurt your ankle and your doctor recommends a physical therapy with a “wobble board” to improve balance and strengthen your ankle joint. These are not overly common items and you could probably buy one somewhere but if you actually own a 3D printer, you will have another option: you can just customize a wobble board using an open source design, print it on your 3D printer and bolt it to a circle of plywood, and that would cost much less.
3D Printable Wobble Board
Credit: J.M.Pearce.
There are many other of other open designs for health aids on the web – from simple splints to complex prosthetic hands. What they all offer in common is they are radically less expensive than the products on the market.
The extreme investment funds that might be had from using a personal 3D printer hasn’t gotten away from the notice of those of us who work in the sciences. Like the excessive mark-ups for anything related to healthcare, scientists likewise frequently suffer from shockingly expensive scientific equipment prices. 3D printers offer us a solution to that as well.
We can take advantage of 3D printing to produce and personalize things. There are instances that what we need are not common items and are hard to find in stores, and are sometimes too expensive. 3D printers may help us to conveniently have the alternatives for our needed stuff, with much less cost.
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