3D printed «magic shoes» make life easier for disabled children

Entrepreneur Melissa Fuller of the UNSW Michael Crouch Innovation Center is 3D printing low-cost prosthetics for children with disabilities. At 17, Melissa Fuller was graduating from Western Sydney High School with no idea what she wanted to do. 15 years later he founded AbilityMate, an entrepreneurial group of designers, engineers and healthcare professionals who use 3D printing to produce customized posture and mobility equipment for children with disabilities. The company called the innovation «Magic Shoes». Designing and manufacturing these ankle and foot orthoses is faster and more economical than traditionally manufactured prosthetics

3D printed «magic shoes» make life easier for disabled children

Melissa dedicates two days a week to UNSW’s Michael Crouch Innovation Centre, where she works with students and former students who approach the center with ideas for new inventions, as she believes they need to be encouraged from the front, especially as she started her working life in a very different environment, having a part-time job as a cleaning assistant in a print shop, where she had the chance to grow and learn every aspect of the business, from cutting posters to operating printing presses and dealing with customers.

Ten years later, he decides he can no longer ignore the impact of advertising graphics on the environment. At that time, 3D printing radically changed manufacturing by creating products that were durable, safe, cheaper, and faster than traditional manufacturing.

“I saw 3D printing as my tool to change the way we design and produce things,” says Melissa of her transition from traditional business to the world of social entrepreneurs.

Raised in an altruistic family of humble origins, it was natural for her to dedicate herself to social entrepreneurship. With some friends, he formed the Three Farm network and traveled around Australia teaching disadvantaged communities how to use 3D technology.

So he founded Makers Place in the Sydney suburb of Waterloo, a maker community that gives people access to the tools and equipment they need to fix things and invent new things, sharing information and ideas with others at the center. Here, Melissa met Johan Du Plessis, who worked with people with disabilities, and realized that his background in engineering could help solve some of the problems they were facing. That’s how he was born SkillMate.

Starting a business that focuses on social impact and not profit is not without its challenges, Melissa says.

“When we started, we were 3D printing everything for everyone, and that wasn’t sustainable,” he recalls.

With $20,000 in seed funding and access to a large network of mentors from Remarkable, a division of Cerebral Palsy Australia sponsored by Telstra and NSW Family & Community Services, we realized we needed to pick a disability and focus on it, so we chose 3D printing ankle and foot orthoses for children with disabilities.

Traditionally, the production of orthotics is slow and expensive. Children experience discomfort in sports when taking a plaster impression, and making a shoe or boot by hand could take weeks. Today, a child’s foot can be scanned in seconds and 3D printing can produce a shoe in just days, so orthotists can help more children.

AbilityMate recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay for things like material testing and approvals, raising $97,000 in just one month from 310 community backers.

It was a «fantastic start» for the company, which continues to raise funds to complete medical studies on the «Magic Shoes», upgrade one of its clinics in Sydney and release open source designs for the shoes.

The company is building an online platform based on the concept of global design and local manufacturing. “Magic Shoes” will be the first product to be available through the AbilityMate platform, where approved 3D printing centers anywhere in the world can connect and get paid to create assistive devices.

“We want to solve this problem for children with disabilities, make money from the solution, reinvest it in the business and share what we’ve learned,” Melissa says.