Pumpkin Tooth Replacement Project
Every year millions of pumpkins around the world are the victims of tooth loss due to physical trauma, decay and improper ‘carving’. The Pumpkin Tooth Replacement Project seeks to provide low cost 3D printed replacement teeth as a means of addressing this global problem.
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Some of the recent articles about 3D printing in the developing world and potential use for local production of medical devices raises lots of questions. How would the design and testing of 3D printable medical devices work? How does the 3D printing community contribute in a meaningful manner with these efforts? How do we ensure that the best designs are available globally but are easily adaptable to local needs?
The Pumpkin Tooth Replacement Project is a simple model to simulate some of the processes surrounding creating 3D printable designs to solve global issues including health care.
I challenge you to play along and share and remix your ideas to solve the problem of Pumpkin tooth loss. (ie. Simulate an open source design process.) I invite you to share in the comments your thoughts about the use of 3D Printing to solve global challenges such as health care.
STL:http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:169144 (Link this as a source if you post your design on Thingiverse)
If you are an educator, I wrote a blog post about using this project to involve students in simulating a global health initiative. Take a look at http://designmaketeach.com/2013/10/21/pumpkin-tooth-replacement-project/ and give some feedback on how to improve this lesson.
