But more importantly….
How are we doing on our promise?
It is nearly a year since our campaign closed and your amazing support meant we could open the first version of the Andiamo service to families.
So how have we done so far?
Promise 1: Creating a prototype service and orthoses for 3 families
Shark attack
A month after the funding ended we were able to scan the first two children in December and quickly turned around the first designs to be printed.
The fitting was planned for February 2015, which we expected to test how well the orthoses fit and what tweaks were required.
We hit two delays in doing this:
1) We were invited over to the USA to pitch on their version of Dragon’s Den called Shark Tank. We believed it would be able to accelerate our ability to work with more families. We miscalculated this and lost several weeks preparing for it.
2) It would have been very easy to recreate a current orthosis. However, we want to solve the hard problems first, and that includes combining reduced weight with strength.
We understand the core of these problems and understand that the material science still has to catch up to what we are able to design. This is getting closer and we have found design workarounds that we are currently testing. The child’s safety and comfort is paramount for us so we are being very cautious in this area.
First fitting and starting again
Our first fitting took place 14th April for Sahara and even though it was 5 months later than planned it fitted perfectly.
It fitted so well it meant that she was able to wear her ballerina shoe rather than a shoe that is one size larger.
Whilst the fitting was perfect we were not happy with how strong the material was and so had to go back to redesign it for higher strength, without sacrificing low weight.
The second iteration was fitted yesterday, and we’re really happy with the results.
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