An undergraduate at New Jersey¹ Institute of Technology made his own plastic braces² 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 decided³ 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 relatively⁴ 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 remarkable⁵.

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。”