Phillip the duck lost his flippers, so someone 3D-printed him new ones
After spending some time out in the cold Wisconsin winter, Phillip the duck’s flippers were frostbitten and damaged. Lucky for Phillip, 3D printing has been proliferating in the human world and some of them were happy to help him out.
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Vicki Rabe-Harrison, Phillip’s new owner, didn’t want to see him struggle so she reached out to Jason Jischke at South Park Middle School, WBAY reported. Jischke’s classroom houses a 3D printer, which would be the perfect tool to make Phillip some new flippers.
After six weeks of trial and error, Jischke modeled the perfect flippers for Phillip using a semi-flexible material called "ninja flex." The final prosthetic legs took about 36 hours to complete in the 3D printer.
It’s going to take some time to get used to his new flippers, but he seems to be getting the hang of the way they feel. Phillip is headed to an animal sanctuary to live with other ducks and work on getting used to his new feet.
“Phillip and I have become pretty good friends, and it’s going to be sad to see him go,” Jischke told WBAY.
In 2013, fellow injured-duck Buttercup was in a similar situation, and was given a very similar prosthetic flipper to help him walk.
As 3D printing becomes cheaper and more popular, it is increasingly becoming a useful tool for the medical community, even for animals. While these little flexible prosthetics aren't a whole lot better than little duck boots, research into printable biomaterials is getting the world closer to replacing body parts with organic replicas.
Give the medical science community a few more years, and Phillip could be walking around on flippers just like the ones he was born with.
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Topics 3D Printing
