The Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast
The Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast is a deep dive into what 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing mean for prosthetics and orthotics. We’re Brent and Joris both passionate about 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing. We’re on a journey together to explore the digitization of prostheses and orthoses together. Join us! Have a question, suggestion or guest for us? Reach out. Or have a listen to the podcast here. The Prosthetic and Orthotic field is experiencing a revolution where manufacturing is being digitized. 3D scanning, CAD software, machine learning, automation software, apps, the internet, new materials and Additive Manufacturing are all impactful in and of themselves. These developments are now, in concert, collectively reshaping orthotics and prosthetics right now. We want to be on the cutting edge of these developments and understand them as they happen. We’ve decided to do a podcast to learn, understand and explore the revolution in prosthetics and orthotics.
The Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast
Hanger Clinic's Bold Move: How Agile Orthopedics Acquisition Reshapes Patient Care with Joris and Brent
The mobile prosthetic clinic model is gaining traction as Hanger acquires Colorado-based Agile Orthopedics, potentially changing how prosthetic care is delivered nationwide. Raise3D's new RMS-220 SLS printer enters the market with open material capabilities, challenging the economics of small-scale prosthetic production.
• Mobile clinics solve transportation challenges for patients with mobility limitations
• Bringing care directly to patients is especially valuable in rural areas with weather challenges
• Centralized fabrication pairs perfectly with mobile clinical services
• Hanger could dramatically expand market reach by adding mobile clinics to existing locations
• Open-material 3D printers may help control costs when material prices increase but reimbursement doesn't
• Entry-level SLS systems face challenges with powder handling and economic viability
• Lattice structures should be used thoughtfully based on function, not just aesthetics
• Using others' designs without permission demonstrates disrespect for intellectual property
Join us next time as we continue exploring innovations in prosthetics and orthotics. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share with colleagues who might benefit from these discussions.
Special thanks to Advanced 3D for sponsoring this episode.
Welcome to Season 11 of the Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast. This is where we chat with experts in the field, patients who use these devices, physical therapists and the vendors who make it all happen. Our goal is to share stories, tips and insights that ultimately help our patients get the best possible outcomes. Tune in and join the conversation. We are thrilled you're here and hope it is the highlight of your day and join the conversation.
Speaker 2:We are thrilled you're here and hope it is the highlight of your day. Hello everyone, my name is Joris Peebles and this is another edition of the Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast with.
Speaker 1:Brent Wright. How are you doing, brent? Hey, joris, I'm doing well, man, I think we're going to hop right in today, man, we have two main things to talk about, don't?
Speaker 2:we Okay, so no guest, we're going to be considering some news, so what are we going to be talking about?
Speaker 1:So I've been wanting to talk about this for a while, but we've had some great guests lately and so we're about a month past the news. However, I think it's important news. Nonetheless, it's kind of flown under the radar. There's a group that was founded by Eric Neufeld in Colorado called Agile Orthopedics, and Agile Orthopedics about a month ago was acquired by Hanger, and so this is just another aspect to the Hanger portfolio and I think one of the things that's interesting about this acquisition and I know you have always said that, for instance, east Point Prosthetics and Orthotics has pretty much always been a mobile company so, as you know, people have trouble that are missing arms, legs and such, have trouble with transportation, and so going to say, a physical therapy appointment or a doctor appointment or even their house makes so much sense, and Eric has done that in Colorado and I don't know if you've ever been to Colorado, but there's a lot of rural areas of Colorado that make it difficult to get around, and then you have the weather on top of that, especially in the winter.
Speaker 1:It just is an interesting series of events that make it difficult to get into, say, a traditional office, and he really blew it out of the water. There he really created a nice culture for his company, and so I'm just kind of curious to see where this goes, because while Hanger has some quote unquote mobile aspects of their company, this seems to be like the first investment into mobile practice and think that's interesting okay, I think it's really cool as well.
Speaker 2:There's two different things either they're just buying that revenue, that territory kind of right, and this is just a normal day in the life of hanger, a hungry hippo hanger, right, you know, eating up uh, more clinics. Or, yeah, what I think you're hinting at very heavily is that maybe this could see hanger kind of learn about that mobile clinic functionality, that ability, and really spread that far and wide. Is that kind of where you're hinting at very heavily? Is that maybe this could see hangar kind of learn about that mobile clinic functionality, that ability, and really spread that far and wide? Is that kind of where you're hinting at there, brent?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So they really built up a nice practice with this mobile aspect and so, yes, you have the maintenance and such of these vans and such and you almost treat them like you would a actual brick and mortar location. But the beauty is and one of the reasons why we loved it is there were a lot of people that relied on public transportation. So while on paper, let's just say we had a really nice looking schedule, we had an eight o'clock, nine o'clock, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock Well, all of them would show up at one o'clock because they arrive on the same transportation. O'clock, 11 o'clock Well, all of them would show up at one o'clock because they arrive on the same transportation.
Speaker 1:And then it's literally a fire drill to try to take care of all these patients at one o'clock, because not only did you scrap your morning, now you have your afternoon patients plus all the patients that were supposed to be there in the morning, and so it really becomes a time management issue as well is people that are doing the mobile side of things. You know, if you're going to their house, they don't really care if you're gonna be a little bit late, they'll continue watching their Wheel of Fortune or their story on TV and I think that is an interesting aspect of mobile that Hanger really hasn't tapped into. So if you look at Hanger, has, I wanna say, 800 to 900 clinics nationwide. If each one of them dropped one mobile clinic, that would be a pretty significant opportunity for them to grab even more market share. And that's good patient care being able to reach people that wouldn't necessarily be able to come in otherwise.
Speaker 2:I think it's really cool. There's a couple of aspects. One is, I do think it's the most logical model For the people, especially the more catastrophic, the more very difficult type injuries, this is just the best service model. This is just amazing. It comes to your house or it comes to wherever you work, wherever it works for you, and so I think that it is a really great client-centric model that will save the client time, a lot of effort, and maybe even, like you know, even if, like, if your prosthetic is broken, then it's even worse, right, right. So I think this, really, you know, it just seems like it's a better model.
Speaker 2:Now, there's another thing to this, which is that if we're like, if normally you would need a patient population of 10,000 or whatever to feed a clinic, if you will, then in Fort Lauderdale you could have a lot of people. Try to go for the 40,000 people that you could have in Fort Lauderdale or whatever. But if you're talking about South Dakota, it may only make sense for one clinic to operate there in a mobile way, right, and so there could be a real way where you can get to be the only clinic in a particular area, right, especially in kind of like Colorado, I think you know remote areas, but also bigger cities, but especially in the more sparsely populated areas in America, you could actually be the kind of the monopoly which is not great but from a pricing perspective is great right. And I think if you just look at this in a mobile thing, if you could do this in a kind of very optimized way, you could really very, very much innovate in. You know, innovate in this way and, you know, end up becoming like a real service leader. You know, if I had an opinion about like it's either going to be like Sarah or Mary, as my prosthetist I'm kind of okay and ambivalent to both of them, and one of them is going to either pick me up or they're going to do it at my house. I'm definitely going to pick the one at my house. So that's, that's, I think, is a really interesting, with the points of this being something that maybe they would be interested in longer term.
Speaker 2:There's another thing I think. I think is there's a company I'm a little bit kind of obsessed with and it's called Carglass. I don't think you don't, I don't think you have it in in in. I think it's called safe flight in the states of many way. They have it. They have it in certain countries, right, and carlos used to repair cars, right, and they stopped doing this in the 20s. And what they, uh, what they do instead is they come to your office, or whatever the hell you where you want to be, to repair minor breaks in your windows, right, and that's that's what they do. It's a fantastic company.
Speaker 2:I'm super obsessed with them because it's just, it's a really simple service model. You get, you know, there's some technological innovation on their side to make those glass repairs possible and safe and easy to do. Right, they can even remove your entire window or they can put some kind of like little bandaid version on it to save your window for a while. You know, a lot of this is paid by the insurers and a lot of it is just like you put in your car number plate, I think. You tell them where it is, when, and then they just come to your office and repair it while you're on your lunch break or maybe when you're sitting inside. So that, to me, is a super convenient business.
Speaker 2:That basically competed with all these guys that were doing it on the side in their garages, so it was kind of outflanked, that whole thing and I think this is the kind of the competitive opportunity that something like mobile would give a hair and clinic or someone else. If you really played this right, if you could just make the appointments really easy to make, make the you know, make sure the guys have the right inventory, automate that, make sure that the you send maybe even the right people do the routing in a kind of intelligent way, you could really outflank a bunch of people and kind of move into areas. And also I like it because it's more mobile, like you could even think of maybe getting more people in Florida in the summer, if you will or really be. You know, the city of Phoenix is growing. We can really quickly move people across country to augment that territory and be more present in that territory without having to, like you know, open up necessary things.
Speaker 2:And also, what I think is really strong is the combination of mobile with a central fab type of ability and having the mobile ability be even more focused on the patient contact part of some things and then the central fab working at one place in I don't know whatever in Costa Rica or in Tennessee or whatever, to really make that, you know, get the parts made. So I think this is from a hanger perspective. If you're going to grow, this is from a hanger perspective. So, if you're going to grow, this is a very interesting thing to to look at.
Speaker 1:So, and I'm glad you mentioned all the production stuff. So if you look at their location, so not only are they mobile, right, so it's not like you can have a bunch of stock in your vans and nor do you want that. You want to have just in time manufacturing essentially for this style. And then you take a look at their. These are very small locations in prime areas or what look to be prime areas, either near a hospital, some sort of referral source or what have you. And so you're talking about also you're not going to have much fabrication on site, because you are paying for premium real estate, essentially to be in the right spot to take great care of patients, and that can be done in a small amount of space. You don't have to have a 5,000 square foot lab.
Speaker 1:So, to your point, you talk about vertical integration too. A lot of times. When you're talking about hanger, now you have somebody that says, hey, we're shipping all our stuff out. We believe that our clinicians are really good at doing clinical things and now we're going to be shipping our pieces and parts out and receiving them in our small, smallish locations, but we don't have our clinicians doing that technical work, which is a revenue loss leader anyway, and so you have the opportunity to create these centralized areas, kind of like what you were talking to. Hey, if you have the opportunity to create these centralized areas, kind of like what you were talking to, hey, if you have an AFO, well, you can send that to the place in Florida and you get it back in four or five days and you continue on your way with seeing patients, which is what you're good at doing, and you know that you're getting fabrication the way that you want.
Speaker 1:And so you see this within the internal aspect of hangers, they have really made it key to be able to do the fabrication in such a way that is consistent and doesn't matter where you essentially get stuff from, and they keep on adding not only locations, but they really have doubled down even into the training aspect of technicians, and they're looking to continue that. And then our stuff with the prosthetic and orthotic stuff and what we're so passionate about with additive manufacturing, you definitely see them moving in such a way to have digital fabrication, like what they're doing in Arizona, and their digital designers and even some of the people that we've had on the show that have been acquired by Hanger Prosthetics or Hanger Clinic now are bringing their digital skills and abilities to the Hanger Clinic, and so I think it's a pretty interesting move to really align on so many of the different aspects, where you are hyper-focused on good patient care, you're controlling your cost of goods and you're going straight to the patient. I mean it's a pretty great combination, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, totally agree. I think this could be a big thing like Pizza Hut kind of thing. So that's cool, all right. So what other news are you excited about, brent, and you want to talk about Raise3D? So Raise 3D is kind of a higher-end FDM material extrusion printer manufacturer or higher-end desktop, I guess. And they've released the well, they've teased, I guess I don't think you can pre-order it, I don't think you can buy it. They've released the Raise 3D RMS-220. And that's an SLS machine and it's a, you know, it's kind of an entry-level SLS kind of solution 220 by 220 by 350 millimeters, that's 8.7 by 8.7 by 13.8 inches. For people who are more accustomed to that, the interesting thing it has it comes with a cleaning station, a build unit and, yeah, basically another, you know, entrant into this kind of like entry-level SLS market and it could be. Well, I don't know, you think it's interesting, right.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting. You know you have a couple of players in the market of these smaller SLS systems, with Formlabs being one of them and now RAISE coming in, and the thing with the orthotic and prosthetic industry that's very difficult is that you do need to have a system that is a good size. So even at 8.7 by 8.7 by 350, which is, I guess, about 14 inches right, so that is very interesting because you can start doing trans-tibial prostheses with this machine on site. And so I think the other thing that people are getting wary of is this idea of closed machines. So you have 3D Systems has a closed machine. They have some open. You've got EOS, you know has their own platform, but that you can do open, but you end up having to pay extra for that, and so this idea of having a cost effective machine that gives you opportunities to run open materials is very, very interesting, because you and I both know that the real development is on the software side and the chemical side. Now, I mean, there is some hardware side of things that becomes interesting, but the reality is hardware is hardware and it's really. How do you tell the hardware what to do, and then what can you do with that hardware. And so having an open material, especially at that price point which I believe is going to be about 60k all in and then probably half that as you add machines is pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:And SLS is notoriously bad for powder handling. Typically you have some sort of cement mixer, barrel mixer, whatever, but to be able to do this in a small form factor where you've got your mixing and your virgin powders coming together and that way you're not having to and then you're also able to fill those build units, so the removable build units on carts is very interesting as well, because then you could really keep these machines going. And the last part is having a roller recoder. Most of these less expensive machines have a blade recoder, which is not always great for materials that are prone to curl or warp, so like a TPU or any of these other more exotic materials. And you know that I like the Loomis Polymers materials, the PK5000. And so the roller recoder is pretty much what makes those materials do very well. And so for Rays to include that little detail on a machine, this price becomes very interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that could be interesting. I mean, the problem is that I've almost never had a client that ended up going for an entry-level SS solution. Right, we know that FarmLabs is doing well, but I think FarmLabs is doing well because it has the trust and the marketing and experience wherewithal to make this happen for people. But apart from that, the other companies in this floundered in this entry-level SS and we're talking really like the $5,000 to $50,000 range and meanwhile, like you know, companies that are selling much more expensive machines, like HP and stuff, have done much better. And part of that is a bit is what you said.
Speaker 2:I mean, the handling is annoying, the post-processing is annoying. It's kind of like this it's too finicky for the people, for most people, but then the volume isn't big, able to deal with the finickiness. You know what I mean. So it's kind of like if you had a much larger machine where you could get like 10,000 things per day out of like an MGF machine, then I think it would be more worthwhile and also, like, from a financial point of view, more worthwhile. And these systems always struggle that in a lab somewhere, usually too annoying. And, like you said, the powder handling, the vacuum they call some vacuuming super annoying. So no one solved that, and so if they do solve that, then okay, that's a big thing. But even if they don't, they often have this kind of like it's too expensive for certain things.
Speaker 2:It takes a lot longer to build larger parts than doing FDM or material extrusion. You're really limited to PA-12, pa-11 essentially with these machines there's some PPE and there's some TPU as well maybe, but you're quite limited on the material front and the material cost is quite high as well. So we see that sintering generally does really well. If you need like 10,000 unique versions of something every day, and for these kind of smaller machines, you know there usually isn't the business case they're kind of a little bit too expensive or too finicky for a lot of things.
Speaker 2:You know it's not that these guys, guys, if they could make it happen, they'll have to really make this experience really kind of really flawless and really kind of very, very easy and and generally make it like a really um, kind of very customer-centric type of thing. You know. So I'm always skeptical about this side of the business because I've seen so many people fail at it and so many times and I and I've never had like a customer, that kind of like, where we that they come in with like we need to make something, and then sometimes they end up with material extrusion. Sometimes we end up with going through a service, a bureau or a contract manufacturer and I've never had somebody where I have to recommend to them, like you should buy 50 entry-level SLS machines and do this yourself or do this at your location or something. Always the economics of it just doesn't. They don't really end up working.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's an interesting point and I think time will tell on that. One of the things that's been interesting is we keep on getting nailed and we run four or no three HP machines and our material prices keep on going up and we don't have an option to go to another material, it's all closed. And so for those that are looking for potentially a cost-effective way to do it, but then especially in, say, our industry, just because the price of material goes up does not mean that the price to the customer goes up. The insurance company couldn't care less how much we paid for the device that we're putting on the patient. And we can't go and say, hey, our powder price went up 12%, we need to raise our rates 12%. No, we eat the cost of that.
Speaker 1:And so your only other options are. One is hey, we're just going to decrease the amount of work that we're going to put through the machines. We're going to go to, maybe, traditional fabrication, where we know we can keep our costs down. Or do we look at other types of machines, powder bed, fusion, types of machines that allow us powders that we're able to control our cost of goods. And for the orthotic and prosthetic industry, I think that that is very, very important and I think a lot of OEMs just do not understand that aspect of our business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. I think so, and also it's interesting because some of the smaller printers are open material as well. Some of the centering machines, or a lot of the centering machines, the largest centering machines are open. I think you have to pay. It depends on the model. I think you have to pay like $13,000 on your fuse to get open material mode activated at the moment, or your fuse at the moment, or refuse one, and I don't know what it is for the second one. I don't know what it is for the second one if they, if they, um, if they kind of they released that they were kind of opened it uh, normally on the resin, but I don't know what the the, the verdict is on the uh on the fuse. So that could be a really interesting kind of point where for some people they're just going to do the math and say, oh, wait, a minute, this is worth it for me to, to switch to, you know, some some uh cheap resin or some lemon and wool stuff that really works for me, not on the cheap but on the performance side, and then that I can then, uh, you know, make that product for a lot less in the in the long run. You know it'll be a real pricing game for people to say, oh wait, my fuse plus open material is so much and maybe, yeah, these guys will be cheaper, this will be a cheaper unit. And also I think it's interesting because a lot of times in sintering the you know this is one of the like the the, the peripheral units, like the vacuum cleaner and little carts and little sieves and stuff are just super overpriced. And so it really kind of does also depend on this whole package that you can give a lot of people for what price you can do that and how well it works.
Speaker 2:But I don't know. It'd be interesting to see if people are really looking at it. But the thing is like if you look at an HP, like a larger HP machine, if you're really going to be doing production with it, you know the economics of it does make sense and a lot of these kind of like newer you know, like looking at the Farsoon Flight example or the flights, let's say I guess there's a bunch of them, but then I think there's a 400 or something is the normal one. You know the systems are engineered to perform. They are kind of you pay for them in a lease per month or something. They aren't, you know, terribly crazy expensive. So I'm going to think, like you know, from a handling perspective. You know, maybe you just have one machine instead of 20.
Speaker 2:Now where I think is a really interesting thing is just to say wait a minute, does this? Let me put in a whole bunch of different materials? Can I now have 10 materials? I don't have to vacuum out my machine. I can do these niche parts that no one else can do. You know, I could do a black material, or I can do a green or whatever, or I could do some weird exotic stuff. So it does maybe make sense in a kind of some people to extend their offering. I just don't know for who this really makes sense economically in the long run. I think that's my worry, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think you are absolutely right. It's going to be the age-old discussion, multi-jet fusion style, a la whatever Stratasys calls theirs. What do they call it? The SAF machine or do you go laser? And one of the things that's interesting about lasers that I really never thought about until I started, until we have one, is the tool pathing. You have to remember that if you have a part or multiple parts, if you have a build volume full of parts, the laser has to hit every part of that part, whereas when you are doing a like the SAF or the multi-jet fusion, you have the ink coming down and then it's getting centered together with a heat lamp and it's very, very fast. So that ink heat lamp combination is way faster than a laser could ever be. Even when you're talking to two lasers or, like the flight systems, you're still. It's a very consistent timing when you're talking multi-jet fusion or SAF.
Speaker 1:But in the same sense, tool pathing is a real issue that I think some of these SLS companies really haven't tackled. Well, there are ways, I believe, that you can make very efficient tool pathing or create designs to make the tool pathing efficient. So one of the things that we look at when we're making our prosthetic devices is we try to minimize the cross-sectional area. So we try to minimize a lot of solid and we will go more towards some sort of ribbing or something like that.
Speaker 1:The other thing that SL, I would say, isn't great at doing is lattice structures, unless they're like chunky lattice structures. But if you think about a lattice structure and say you have a beam diameter of one or one and a half millimeters, you're talking about that laser literally zapping that powder just a little bit, just in that one area, and then you potentially have these floating islands that can be lifted and that sort of thing. So there's a whole design aspect of SLS that I don't think has been explored to the extent, even though SLS has been around for a while. We know the shortcomings and we just kind of deal with it instead of really hopping into how can we make this better. So that's just, and again, some people may be listening to this and be like, hey, what is this guy talking about?
Speaker 2:Listen, I've only been using SLS for about eight months and these are just some of my perspectives of using it for this last period of time. But then you mean Lattice specifically for TPU, or Lattice is just generally for everything.
Speaker 1:I would say Lattice is specifically for anything. So one of the things that's been interesting is, with multi-jet fusion you really have to watch and I guess SLS to some extent your heat distribution. So you want to make sure that you try to keep as much heat out of the center of the build as possible because you want the whole build to be about the same temperature, so when it cools it cools at the same rate, rather than warping or having a hotspot in a specific area and one side cooling faster than the other. So to take care of that in multi-jet fusion there's multiple solutions that you can do to minimize the heat on parts. In the same way, though that solution wouldn't necessarily be the same way for an SLS part.
Speaker 1:With SL, I would definitely say you want to try to minimize the amount of lattice structures, small lattice structures. So when I say small, let's just say like three millimeters diameter or less. I think you're just asking for trouble at that point. Can things be done at that level? Sure, but then it's like can you do it other ways? I think and you and I have had the discussion is when is it right to use lattice structures and when is it right to use a structure that's not as cool looking but gets you what you want.
Speaker 2:It's never right to use lattice structure. No, it's like I'm not. I don't know, I'm just. I'm just a bit fearful that everyone's using lattices because they see lattices and not necessarily because they you know what I mean. They see a lot of lattice structures on their DDSU, or they see a lot of lattice structures in a lot of digital phone projects and stuff like that, and they just adopt lattices because they think that's what they're supposed to do, without considering if it actually.
Speaker 2:You know it's like again, I keep forgetting who told me this, but you know it's like wet spaghetti, if you, if it's, if it's a high impact and it deforms that kind of like really unpredictable weights as well. And it depends, of course you want like energy return or energy uh, kind of dissipation or whatever that kind of thing. So it is a bit like. It feels a lot like I don't know if you remember this, but it's a time when everybody started making everything on fdm with fractals and everything was just fractals for like four years. And it kind of feels a lot like that kind of time when everybody's just like using this, not necessarily because it's the best solution but because, you know, if cause it's it's just the solution.
Speaker 2:Everybody else is using. It's kind of in vogue. It's kind of cool, you know, and and you know I'm more of a gyroid man myself no, I mean, I, I, so I'm always, I'm always pushing back on people, you know. And the problem with it with usually, is you're like, if you ask me why they're doing a lattice, I just don't, I haven't actually thought it through. I know you, when you use lattices, you think it through and you know that you're doing because it's heat dissipation, it's the person needs to sweat, or you know there's real reasons for doing it. But I just, I just like I'm a little bit kind of careful with lattices. I always try to be, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I think you're absolutely right. And I think the other thing is at scale. Sometimes the lattice structures, you know, don't make the most sense. And one of the things that's been interesting is, you know, we have been doing lattice structures for quite a while on powder bed fusion TPU and one of the things that we realized is definitely less is more on this. So you know, we used to do these sometimes big, chunky lattice structures and while patients love them, they did break down over a period of time.
Speaker 1:So what do we do? Well, we started going smaller and smaller, and then there's kind of the point of no return where you can't even get a lattice structure in. And so I think the real key when you're looking at the powder bed fusion style TPU is looking at, say, a two and a half D rib lattice along with maybe a beam lattice of some sort. But you want to keep your beam a little bit thicker and your cell size bigger as well so you can get the powder out. So those are some, just some little hints to those that are wanting to really dive into that. But I think to your point is just because it looks good doesn't mean that it works good and doesn't mean that you should do it, and I would 100% agree with that.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I think it's interesting. A beautiful example happened today and it was like Carbon, which, of course, is a DLP company. So they make these resin materials, a photo driven process, and they collaborated with a thing called Breusch. It's like they make gloves skiing gloves, I think, but also gloves for what we call it football I think you guys would call it soccer and the funny thing is so they put a 3D printed part on it.
Speaker 2:So Carbon has a lattice engine. They're all about lattices For them. It really makes sense, right For a bike seat. The carbon technology really makes sense, and adding a lattice to a bike seat means it cools your butt. You can move around a little bit. There's different impact areas Depending on where your butt is. You can actually optimize it for your bone, so you actually have a better bike seat you can sit on if you're a professional rider for, like you know, a better part of a day, essentially, and it's lightweight and it's also going to be then then really comfortable. So I think for carbon, I understand lattices completely, because that's the way they're going to get those impact things.
Speaker 2:Now, the best example, the counterpoint, that is always a carbon made shoes for adidas, where it's like what if I get sand or a rocket, it kind of doesn't really work. So it doesn't really work for everything. But there's a beautiful example that happened with this royce thing. So carbon now is is really. I think it's a fantastic company in the sense that they really work with customers, so like, uh, you know the bauer hockey helmets or whatever kind of customer, and they work with them to develop the solution that works for them. And it's kind of a small add-on part. So all spray really great backpack manufacturer. And these panels for the back of your backpack that make you sweat less when you're carrying the backpack great idea, right. So here with the roisting, they made a punch pad or something. So when you're a the backpack Great idea, right. So here with the Royce thing, they made a punch pad or something.
Speaker 2:So when you're a soccer goalie, you punch the ball. Sometimes this is a kind of last resort thing to do. You don't want to do this generally because the ball can go somewhere and it can end up in front of any player's foot and then he's going to. Actually, while you're punching, you're flying off side of the net. So it's a very dangerous thing to do. It's kind of a last resort kind of thing, or you're actually going to punch it and it's going to go out and then there's going to be a corner. So, you know, as a goalie, you're totally, you know, not into punching unless you absolutely have to.
Speaker 2:But the flat part of the glove where he catches the ball with, or she catches the ball with, that they just left latex, right? Because apparently 3D printing that photopolymer material doesn't actually give you any kind of advantage or doesn't actually maybe work. Maybe it's you know the rheology of it Maybe it's just too smooth and too slippery and it doesn't actually work as would a normal kind of goalie glove, right? So it's like. This is I think it's a beautiful example part where you're like oh yeah, we can really do this energy return and our energy absorption kind of component with the lattice on the fist. But if we're looking at it, so I grip surface but yeah, then just some regular latex stuff is actually probably better. You know what I mean, right? So it's like additive is not the answer to everything, and I think this is a beautiful example of like where even on the glove they're putting the additive part and it works.
Speaker 2:It'll probably work really well, right, these things just generally like the first adidas shoes are crap but, but later on they got their stuff together and it really works really well. So you know, in that that sense as well, and also in the beginning the the carbon shoes, they used to break a lot and stuff and now it's also a lot less. So they solve this kind of the shearing impact from the other side as well to partially, so this will work well. But it doesn't mean out of an answer for everything. It doesn't, and it definitely like going back to what you said. It does definitely means that this geometry isn't going to be the answer to everything, and if you would look at that from an engineering and architect point of view, you know the one brick isn't going to be the answer to everything. That one shape in the car is not going to be an answer to everything.
Speaker 1:You know that one bolt is not going here, but we have just a few minutes left. I wanted to tell you about an experience that I had. Actually, it happened last night and this morning. I actually had a situation it's not the first time where my parts ended up in somebody else's shelf Okay, I guess, hands right, hands, hands, yes, yes, hands where my parts ended up in somebody else's shelf, I guess.
Speaker 2:And so Hands right Hands.
Speaker 1:Hands, yes, yes, hands In somebody else's hands, and they were expressly using my parts, saying that they could provide these things as part of what they do. And they're not in the United States, they're in someplace else. What is the appropriate? I don't even know the right word manners, I guess when, when displaying parts, like people should get permission right, or is it just kind of the wild, wild west and you just kind of just say, oh well, it just happens. Thank you for thank you for that, I mean turning, yeah, turning around, right?
Speaker 2:I always tell marketeers that they should always check every single part of the show at a trade show, every single part of the show on a photo or in a photo shoot, and they should just basically try to engineer all of them themselves, right? Try to get a grad student or an employee or an intern or I don't know who to make all these parts themselves to avoid any problems with it, right? So from the marketeer's perspective, right, you should not be using other people's parts unless these people are expressly a partner for you. But why? Because it's a huge problem if you do so incorrectly. You could get some kind of cease and desist stuff and some kind of copyright stuff, and you can get all sorts of nasty letters or just some stink. If you took an open source part, for example, and then using it commercially, maybe that wasn't the idea of the designer, or maybe that designer would be okay with somebody else using it, but they don't like you or they don't like your country or whatever, right? So I just like you know, from a point of view of a company. It's like have you communicated with bulb? And if you ask bulb, is it okay to use your part and it's bulb, like a friend of yours can optimize them to showcase, you know, for example, we're talking about SLS and lattices. We can optimize to show where your abilities of your machine lie, right, rather than downloading some random thing. You can show what exactly is better about your TPU lattice structure, or what is exactly the best bike seat that would work with you and it would be more durable. Or, or, you know, it would be more comfortable with you, right? So it actually forces you to actually make better demonstration parts, because there's so many people just lazily download everything and they use other people's stuff because they just have it or somebody gave it to them and, um, you know, so, so, so, and, and it's just lazy, because you're not actually using the additive manufacturers of technology to showcase the capabilities of you as a service or a designer or a manufacturing company or an OEM right making the machine.
Speaker 2:So that's the counterpoint and I think it's horrible. I think it's a horrible thing to do. If you do it on purpose, if you do this like, if you kind of mistreat somebody's files or somebody's hard work and you show it off, I think it's a really, really terrible thing. It's just stupid marketing as well and it's just a really kind of not you don't. If you don't respect the engineering and the creativity and the work that goes into something, then how are you going to respect my ip? You know, if you're like a service or an oem and if I'm going to send you files to buy your machine or buy your service, like what, what guarantee do I have that you respect me and my secrets and my trade secrets and my work? So I think it's actually the stupidest thing ever as an OEM to use somebody else's stuff without permission or as a service. That's actually ridiculous. It's like you're saying to somebody that I don't respect IP and I'm like but I'm going to give you my top secret prototypes, you know, stuff that's going to come out six months or a year or whatever. So I just think it's really dumb. I think it's really dumb and I think you just apologize and move on as quickly as you can.
Speaker 2:And there's been a ton of stuff. There was a big problem with the desktop community about like seven, eight years ago about these open source parts that everybody was just downloading off of Thingiverse and using on their stands and then, sometimes without mentioning the people, everybody was just like losing over that. You know know, the market has changed a bit, but I think you have to show people you respect their ip, because we are making a lot of top secret trade secret stuff as services and as oems and I need to know that you respect that in order to trust you to buy your machine or your service. Yeah, I think it's really dumb that I did that. I'm sorry I did that, mom yeah, well it's.
Speaker 1:It's always interesting to see that, and what's funny is that, especially that kind of stuff when it's the prosthetic and orthotic industry it's pretty obvious if you've created your own stuff or taken it. So you know, our advanced 3D has a specific look about it and it's because we use the technology and software and such to make it happen. You can definitely see some other cool things that maybe look pretty great from like 20 foot out, but when you get on top of it you're like, oh wow, that's just a bunch of Booleans and some lattice structures thrown together and it's definitely different. So I think it's always interesting and I like your point is you should make your own parts and display what your capabilities are instead of using others, and I think that's a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway, so on that more somber, very serious note, we end this edition of the Prosthetics and Orthotics podcast with Brent Wright and Uris Peebles and thank you for listening to us and we really appreciate it, and have a great day, thank you.
