Visit to Hodey

Interdisciplinary Project Winter Semester 2018/2019 Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences FabLab Kamp-Lintfort by Adriana Cabrera, Prof. Karsten Nebe, Prof. William Megill Faculty Enviroment and Energy

1. Orthotics
2. Prosthetics
3. Orthopedic shoe technology

Orthotics means that parts of the body have to be supported, whereas prosthetic means that a body part is missing and needs to be compensated for.

Whenever a client for example needs to support a foot, they may visit Hodey where their foot can be scanned on their new 3D scanner. They just started to use the new technology that can scan two feet at the same time. The scan will directly be transferred to the computer and to a display where the feet are shown in the exact size that they are. Having the data a model can be printed in the 3D printer. The material on the outside is PLA, and the inside is hollow. Because of being exposed to 180 degreed celcius later on and high negative pressure, the inside is filled with rigid foam after the printing process. Later on plastic is pulled over the model and the first product is created.
Depenidng on the illness, differet joints or carbon-feathers are needed and integrated.
While producing the first model, they work with an axis, a pole in the model, which allows to adjust every data such as the scope for example.

Until now, Hodey can only print models in the size of 30x30cm. Their goal is to develop the technology to being able to directly print the authese and not having to do all of the steps before that.

Scanning a model

Adjusting

3D printing a model

Printed model made of PlA on the outside. Will then be filled with rigid foam.

First product

Scanning feet

Scanned feet are shown in the exact size on the display