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A Brampton father has enlisted the help of Cambrian College’s applied research department to 3D print a custom plaster cast after his three-year-old son broke his arm in May.

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Anmol Singh was pretending to be a superhero in the backyard when he jumped off a stool and broke his humerus bone.

Doctors at Georgetown Hospital sent him home in a soft cast and sling to await his fracture clinic appointment in seven days, when he would be fitted with a cast that would have to be worn for four. at six weeks.

“We thought it was a little crazy,” said Deep Singh, father of Anmol, vice president of advanced manufacturing at CAD MicroSolutions Inc. “Children are having a hard time with the pandemic. They don’t can’t see their friends and family, but now their summer is going to be taken away from them because of this plaster cast.

As parents, “we are always responsible for the well-being of our children,” noted the father. “Our three year old who always laughed and played sat at home sad and watched TV. Do we really see its been like this?

Faced with this problem, Singh’s wife asked him if he could find a solution using 3D printing.

“I have been working in 3D printing for about 10 years, helping Canadian companies across all industries and educational institutions evolve and embrace Industry 4.0 technologies. We sell equipment, provide training and support, and it’s always application-oriented, ”Singh said.

“I know people in the medical industry that we work with. I know people who have 3D printers. So the question was, is seven days enough for us to do this?

Singh set up a “quick consortium” of family, friends and colleagues who could help him create a 3D printed digital cast for his son.

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“Cambrian College was brought up in our discussion at the time. Cambrian has a 3D printer that I installed a few years ago. They are one of the first colleges in Canada with an HP 580, ”he said.

“The machine is not only capable of printing in color, but it also prints in a biocompatible nylon material. It was really important to us because we wanted to make sure the casting was comfortable for our son.

But before the final design was sent to Cambrian R&D for printing, there was a lot more work to be done. Singh first contacted Footletic, a custom orthotics company in Stoney Creek, to have Anmol’s arm scanned.

“A friend of mine who makes orthotics for the feet has a 3D scanner that connects to an iPad. He scans people’s feet and that’s what he uses to design custom orthotics, ”he said.

“To avoid moving Anmol’s broken right arm, we scanned his left arm in the 90 degree angle of his sling. Once we had a digital file of his left arm, we sent that file to another company. “

A Belgian custom orthotics company called Spentys designed an elbow and arm orthosis from this file overnight and sent Singh a digital CAD file the next morning. Singh brought the file to CAD MicroSolutions Inc. to 3D print the first prototype.

“We printed the cast, and it was a perfect fit. At this point, it only took a click of a button to reproduce the file from his right arm, ”he said.

“The plaster was personalized and we made it light, durable and waterproof. There were a lot of perks to this cast, but something was still missing.

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Singh wanted to find a way to get his son excited about his new corset, so he started documenting the casting process on social media (tinyurl.com/2aw8u356) and he asked his family and friends around the world to send digital messages and stickers that they could print on the cast.

“We took those posts and applied them to the casting on the digital file, and because my son really loves Paw Patrol, we made another one for him with just Paw Patrol,” he said.

“Finally, we sent these files to Cambrian College to 3D print the final product. “

Deep approached Patrick Galipeau-Belair, Mechanical Engineer at Cambrian R&D, who jumped at the opportunity to get involved in this community effort.

“We were eager to help someone in need and excited about the opportunity to see if our equipment is capable of printing casts for future applications,” said Galipeau-Belair.

“We have printed so many different things in the past, like small vehicles, parts for some prototypes and even a portable medical device, but we never printed a cast so it was unique to us. The hard part about it wasn’t necessarily the impression, but in the timeline that Deep gave us.

The design and prototyping of the plaster had already taken six days and time was running out before Anmol’s appointment at the fracture clinic on May 27.

“Deep sent us the files and I went to college, put the printer online and sent the files to print. About eight to ten hours later, ie the next morning at that time, I went to collect the parts, ”said Galipeau-Belair.

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“We sanded the pieces to remove the extra residue that was left there, then Deep went to Sudbury to pick them up. “

The end product, Galipeau-Belair said, blew them away.

“I think the most important thing we have learned is that we are able to successfully print a cast in about eight hours. It was also very interesting to see the quality of the finished product, ”he said.

“Prototypes often don’t need color, especially if you’re printing parts for a mechanical object. We’ve never printed something with so many color schemes, and the finished product turned out to be excellent.

Galipeau-Belair added that he hopes this project will highlight some of the college’s capacity for the wider community, especially Cambrian’s industrial partners.

“Any business or person in town that has an idea or something that they want to develop, print, design or manufacture, we offer all of these capabilities to Cambrian R&D through funding or a service fee,” he said. .

Singh returned home at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning with just a few hours before Anmol’s 8:30 am appointment at the clinic. According to an article published by CBC, the orthopedic surgeon at Georgetown Hospital was impressed.

“We are truly grateful to everyone who got involved in this project. There is still a lack of knowledge in this space – people don’t really understand 3D printing, ”Singh said.

“Part of my role is to drive innovation across the country, whether at universities or with industry partners. I’m happy to do whatever I can to get people excited about the future of this technology.

The Local Journalism Initiative is made possible through funding from the federal government.

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