This technology saved the tortoise!

This female tortoise whose name is Freddy, was caught in a bush fire in Brazil, her chances of survival were slim. But thanks to a group of pioneering surgeons known as The Animal Avengers, Freddy not only survived her ordeal – she is also now the proud owner of the world’s first 3D printed shell! For a tortoise, a shell is not only part of its body, it is also protection, a shield that protects it from predators and in general from the outside world.

She had almost completely lost her shell , she had lost 85%, but the team of researchers built her a new one thanks to a 3D printer. The design was printed out in four individual pieces from a corn-based plastic. “Just to make [a] single piece it took 50 hours of printing, which is much more than we imagined,” Paulo Miamoto, said the dental surgeon who was part of the team. Once printed, the four pieces were assembled, like a jigsaw puzzle, on top of Fred to create a full hull.

A new shell!

The Animal Avenger team that helped Freddy consisted of four veterinarians, a dentist, and a graphic designer. Using the most advanced technology, they created a new shell. Once complete, there was just one last issue. The shell was white and didn’t look authentic, so the team asked Brazilian artist Yuri Caldera to paint the replica to make it look like the shell Fred was born with.  So the team turned to the artist Yuri Caldera who painted the shell with more realistic colors using non-toxic paints. Watch the video, they made an Amazing job!!!

“We are a group of friends who share a love for science and for animals. We thought that, by using our skills and the latest technology, we could help animals that have been mutilated, so we built her a prosthesis that would allow her to lead a normal life. – The Animal Avengers 

Thanks to the noble and avant-garde work of her saviors, Freddy can now go into the woods without fear.

It’s time to shell-ebrate!

Source: www.journaldugeek.com