An undergraduate at New Jersey Institute of Technology made his own plastic braces using a 3D printer, US$60 of materials, and they actually worked.

新泽西理工大学的一名本科生用一台3D打印机以及60美元的材料为自己制作了塑料牙箍，而且这些牙箍确实有效。

Amos Dudley had braces in middle school, but he didn't wear a retainer like he was supposed to, so his teeth slowly shifted back. He didn't want to shell out thousands of dollars for a whole new round of braces, so the digital-design major decided to make his own.

阿莫斯·达德利中学的时候就戴上了牙箍，但他没有按要求戴固位体，所以他的牙齿逐渐后移。他不想花上千美元去做一套新牙箍，所以这位主修数字化设计的大学生就决定自己做牙箍。

The process wasn't exactly easy. He had to research orthodontic procedures and plot the route of his successive braces, so his teeth would move in the right way.

制作牙箍的过程并不简单。他必须研究牙齿矫正的步骤，绘制好相继更换的牙箍的制作方法，这样他的牙齿才会以恰当的方式长回去。

But once that was done, all it took was fabricating a series of models out of relatively inexpensive plastic, and then following through on wearing them.

不过一旦完成以上步骤，需要做的就是用相对便宜的塑料制作一系列模型，然后就可以戴上了。

And it was worth it for Dudley, whose smile turned out looking remarkable.

对达德利而言，这很值得，他的微笑也变得十分明显。

Here is the process he went through:

以下是他制作牙箍的过程：

First he took a mold of his teeth with alginate powder. "These molds are very precise, and capture an amazing amount of detail," he writes.

首先他用海藻酸盐粉末制作了一个牙齿模具。“这些模具很精密，捕捉了大量的细节，”他写道。

"I put the mold upside down in a yogurt container, and then filled it with liquid Permastone," he writes.

“我把模具倒置于盛酸奶的容器中，然后用液态的仿石材料填满容器，”他写道。

"When it came out, I simply broke off the top to reveal the casting, and used a razor blade to smooth out the surrounding area."

“做成之后，我只是敲碎顶部，露出铸模，然而用一把剃须刀片把四周刮平。”

Now he had a better sense of what was going on with his teeth.

如今他对他的牙齿矫正过程有了更好的了解。

The picture below shows the "steps", all 3D-printed out. "Labeling the pieces is critical," he advises. "They look virtually identical."

下面这张照片展示了“牙齿矫正的步骤”，所有的都是3D打印出来的。“贴标签很重要，”他建议道。“因为它们看上去几乎一样。”

（翻译：Dlacus）