3D printing leads the way to the Paralympics

Fabrizio Passetti is preparing for the ISA World Adaptive Surfing Championship in La Jolla, California. Veronica Yoko Plebani is ready for the Rio Paralympics. They are two Italian athletes with a rich history of trophies and success. They also both use Prosthesis 3D printed by Marco Avaro, Biomedical Engineer who is part of the WASPmedical team.

He works with a DeltaWASP 40 70 and three DeltaWASP 20 40. Veronica is a canoeist and Fabrizio a Surfer. “I’ve made a hand brace for Veronica,” said Avaro. “Fabrizio instead needs a carbon fiber prosthesis for high-level performance in extreme conditions. They are enthusiastic about results and they embody the extraordinary results we can obtain with 3D printing.”

At the Orthopedic – Lab, Del Bene Fabio, in Trieste, the Italian Engineer works with his DeltaWASP Printers realizing more and more sophisticated prosthesis.

“This work is based on using high-quality filaments, produced by TreeD Filaments, and the fast and accurate printers manufactured by WASP. Today, the 3D printing has become extremely accurate and sophisticated. We’re printing objects with tolerances of 0.2mm.”

It’s important to understand that a Prosthesis is a customized medical device and so regulations need to be respected and it needs a medical prescription. Many reliability tests have been conducted. Filaments have been certificated and now the specifications are being written.

We’ve built a good relationship with Marco Avaro. In this period he is working with a new Extrusion System. He is experimenting the new Full Metal Extruder and he is very enthusiastic: “Its peculiarity is to homogenize prints, making a strong and tenacious product. I’m very satisfied,” says Avaro, “it’s a bulldog.”