A little while ago I wrote about joining a group of makers who put their 3D printers to work printing splints for the earthquake victims in Venezuela. At the time, I said this wasn't a plan for the future — it was already happening, with the first pieces on their way. Well, I promised I'd check back in with updates, and this week gave me two big reasons to do exactly that.
The first: we shipped our biggest batch yet. The second: we just doubled our capacity. Let me tell you about both.
What went out this week
This week we produced and sent off these boxes — and they were PACKED. More than 50 pieces in total, all heading to Venezuela. Here's what was inside:
🦴 13 knee splints
✋ Hand splints (adult and child sizes) and children's forearm splints
💪 A shoulder brace
🫁 23 oxygen tube connectors
💉 A box of ampoules and 4 boxes for test tubes
🩹 4 IV/serum stands
Fifty-plus pieces in a single week. And look at that list again, because it's grown beyond just splints now. When we started, it was arms, shoulders, wrists and fingers. Now we're printing oxygen tube connectors — 23 of them — because in a healthcare system stretched to breaking point, even a small plastic connector that lets a hospital hook up an oxygen line can be the difference between a machine working and a machine sitting useless. We're printing holders for test tubes and boxes for ampoules, because when supplies are chaos and everything's in short supply, organization and storage matter too. We're printing IV stands, because sometimes the most basic equipment is exactly what's missing.
It's stopped being just "splints" and become something closer to "whatever the hospitals actually need that we can make." And that shift — from a single product to responding to real, specific requests — feels like the initiative growing up. Getting smarter. Getting more useful.
If you saw my workshop this week it was a production line. Boxes filling up with colour — blue braces, pink and lilac splints, green and black supports, the yellow lattice pieces from before — each one a piece of equipment that's now on its way to someone who needs it thousands of kilometres away.
And then the game-changer: a second printer
Here's the part that genuinely made my week.
Yesterday, thanks to donations, we received a new printer. A brand new machine, funded entirely by people who wanted to help the cause, now sitting in my workshop ready to work. And what that means is simple but huge: we've just doubled our production capacity.
Think about what that does. Everything I described above — the 50-plus pieces, the knee splints, the oxygen connectors, all of it — that was the output of the setup we had. Now, with a second machine running alongside the first, we can produce roughly twice as much in the same amount of time. Two printers running in parallel, day and night, turning spools of plastic into medical equipment for Venezuela. The next batch could be double the size of this one.
And I want to be clear about where that printer came from, because it matters: donations. People who read about this, or heard about it, and decided to put their money towards buying a machine that will print aid for strangers on the other side of the world. They won't ever meet the people their donation helps. They did it anyway. That's the whole spirit of this thing in a nutshell.
Why this keeps working
I keep coming back to the same thought every time I pack one of these boxes. None of the people involved in this are getting anything out of it. Not money, not recognition, not a favour returned down the line. The makers printing the parts, the people donating the printers and the filament, everyone in the chain — they're doing it purely because they can, and because someone needs help.
That's what makes it beautiful. And it's why it keeps growing. Every time someone new hears about it, a few more want to join. Another printer. Another donation. Another batch. The capacity keeps expanding because the willingness to help keeps expanding, and the two feed each other.
We started with splints. This week we shipped oxygen connectors and IV stands and 50-plus pieces of equipment. Yesterday we doubled our machines. I genuinely don't know how big this gets, but I know the trajectory is pointing in one direction, and it's the right one.
The invitation still stands
Same as last time, but with even more force now that we've seen what's possible: if you work with 3D printing, or you know someone who does, there's room for you in this. More hands, more machines, more filament — it all translates directly into more people helped.
And if you can't print but you want to help, the second printer we received yesterday is proof that donations make a real, tangible difference. That machine will produce thousands of pieces over its lifetime. Every contribution, however small, becomes physical equipment in a hospital that desperately needs it.
Technology is worth what it allows us to do for others. This week, ours made 50-plus pieces of medical equipment for Venezuela. Next week, with two machines running, it'll make even more.
Onto the next batch. The printers are already running.