Breaking a bone is unpleasant all around — and having to wear a smelly, clunky plaster cast is like getting kicked when you're down. At least, that's how Jake Evill felt after breaking his hand. He told Wired that his plaster cast felt "archaic."
Evill, a recent graduate of Victoria University in New Zealand, wants to update the process of healing of broken limbs with something a little more modern: 3D printing.
Evill created the Cortex cast, a breathable, lightweight, recyclable and washable exoskeleton that mimics the body's trabecular, the small honeycomb-like structure that makes up your inner bone structure.
The cast lets in plenty of air, which prevents that stuffy, itchy feeling.
The Cortex cast employs a similar fitting system as other casts, with X-rays to determine bone fractures. Evill's prototype used a hacked Kinect for Xbox for the 3D scanning, but a more sophisticated and precise scanning process is in the works.
Check out the video above to see how the Cortex cast fits to broken bones.
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