hi, i'm gracie, and i'm part of the design girlsteam at brookwood school. we design solutionsfor the 3-d design problem bank. people at our schoolsubmit problems that they need solutions to. and we solve their problemsusing 3-d printers. what's cool about a 3-d printer is that you can builda three-dimensional object from a computer file that hasthe design of the object,
printing it layer by layerby layer. we're using a program calledtinkercad. it's open source3-d printing software. "open source" means it's freefor anyone who wants to use it. now we're expandingthe 3-d design problem bank beyond our schoolby designing solutions for people who livein our community. we interviewed some seniors at the harborlight housesenior residence
to see if they had any problemsthat we could solve with a 3-d printer. gracie:i met with a woman named joan, and she hada torn rotator cuff, which is in her shoulder, and she couldn't lift her arm upvery high, but she loved to play cards. so what i designed for herwas a holder that can hold her cards.
so i printed out a prototypefor joan of the card holder. a prototype is a smaller versionof the actual thing just to test it outand evaluate it. she said that it wasa little uncomfortable because it had two levels to it. it's too high. gracie:so i took away the one level, and that's printing right now, and it will be lowerthan the prototype,
and i will be presenting itto her tomorrow. you're a big help,thank you. thank you. so i designed a key holderfor lorraine, who is a residentat harborlight. do you want me to try this outon your key? well, you could, yes. the wide partwill help give her leverage to turn the key in the lock.
lorraine:and i have to have it up just high enough tooso that it'll go in as far as it's supposed to go. what i need is for this to fitright up snug to this part. i brought a key holderprototype, and i realized it was too smallfor her keys. so it probably won't fit. well, we don't knowuntil we try. addie:yeah, so it won't turn,
so i just need to move itup there. now i'm adding a raised partto the key holder so that way, she'll knowwhich end is the top and she won't even haveto look at it. i designeda tablet holder for joan because she likes to facetimewith her grandkids. when i built the prototype, it failed because the holdertipped over. see, that's the problem.
so that's what happens. brooke: it fell over becausethere was not enough support in the back. this is a redesignof my first prototype, and now it works because i madeextra support in the back. i'm really excitedto give this to her because i want her to be ableto talk with her grandkids. gracie: we made prototypes,got feedback from the seniors, and now we're presentingour new designs to the seniors.
lorraine:when we tried it this way, we couldn't open the door. addie:yeah, because it was... yeah. that's wonderful,thank you very much. let's try it. her door is over here. lorraine: it should open it,and it does, as you see. addie: i'm very happy thatlorraine likes her key holder,
but if i had to add anything,i'd add led lights so she could see it in the dark. thank you, girls, it worked! you're great, just great,and i enjoyed seeing you again. i made the holder for your ipad. yes! i added these support beamsright here, and i connected these twotogether. joan: you guys are clever.
brooke: thank you. and i made the card holder. good. i added this back in. i just made it longerand took away the second level, and made the spacewhere the cards go a little bit bigger. joan: very good. you're so smart!
i'm so happy i'll be ableto play cards again! i've been going crazynot being able to do anything. you're welcome. oh, give me a hug. gracie: i love this project
new balance 3d printed shoes,and i love workingwith the seniors because i really helped them, but they helped me toobecause i feel great about what i accomplished.
