3D Printing to help the NHS

I’ve wanted a 3D Printer for ages, after I saw online the things that people can create with them. I saved up my money through the pocket money jobs I do round the house until I had enough to buy one.

Once I got the printer it took me and my dad almost a whole day to put it together – the instructions were in Chinese so we had to use online tutorials on YouTube to figure out how it all fitted together.

My first 3D print was a dog which is one of the test prints which they provided with the printer. It was really cool watching the code become a physical object that you could pick up.

I use an application called Blender to create my own designs, and this software allows me to turn my designs into code which the 3D printer can translate into a printed object.

At first I printed things like a Tardis for my uncle (who loves Doctor Who) and a Japanese cartoon character called Totoro for my Dad (who works at Documation and is a massive geek)

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Then I saw on a 3D printing Facebook group that some people were using their 3D printers to create things which were useful to the NHS heroes who are caring for the COVID-19 victims. I spoke to my mum’s best friend Karen who is a nurse at Basingstoke hospital and she said that some ear savers, which stop the face masks they need to wear from rubbing on their ears, would be really great.

I found a design online for the ear savers and then updated this in Blender so that I could print lots at once. It’s quite a simple design so it actually only takes about an hour to print seven.

I took the printed ear savers to our friend Karen and she sent me this photo of her using one on the ward. I feel really happy that they worked and that I was able to help the nurses in the NHS a little bit.

What a great effort from George.  The whole team at Documation really are a #DocumationFamily – The Human Touch !