[MUSIC]
[Arielle] My name is Arielle Rausin.
I'm a wheelchair racing athlete.
Training at the University of Illinois is very physically demanding.
When we are doing marathon training, we are clocking about 20 miles a day.
We will do sometimes seven or eight on the track in the morning, and then a thirteen
or fourteen mile push in the afternoon out on the roads.
So it's pretty intense.
I had taken a class at the University of Illinois called "Making Things."
We had a project to essentially come up with something that we wanted to create.
We had all the 3D printing technology available to us and 3D scanning technology.
And so I was brainstorming here with Coach at practice.
Like, "What would be really cool to print?"
"What would be really cool to make?"
And he was like, "You should try to make some gloves!"
[Coach Bleakney] You can be the strongest, and most-fit athlete, and have the most efficient
bio-mechanical stroke, but, if you aren't in the right set-up with your equipment -- and that's racing chair,
wheels, tires, gloves -- then you won't achieve your potential in the sport.
[Arielle] So one of the most important things for racing is the glove.
If you don't have a good glove, that definitely makes or breaks a race.
The way the gloves work is there is this groove that lines right in the middle.
Right there.
And the groove is really important because you really want that contact with the ring.
[Coach Bleakney] Athletes who are new to the sport, typically they will use an off-the-shelf glove that's
made out of leather and rubber.
As they progress, they will move into a more advanced technology.
And that is a solid pair of gloves.
As the athletes master this skill of using the solid gloves, there is a better transfer
of energy.
So there is quite a bit of force that gets transferred from the handring to the glove
and into the body.
So designing a glove that better absorbs those forces is really key to keeping the athlete
healthy.
For the last decade, we have used a plastic material that you heat up and mold to accommodate
the athlete's particular preferences and stroke style.
[Arielle] Every single glove is unique because we mold it to each athlete's individual hand.
And one pair it takes a lot, a lot of hours to build.
And so it typically costs around $250 to make one pair of gloves.
[Coach Bleakney] The real problem is, when they move on to their next set of gloves, as you try to re-build
a new pair of gloves, just eyeballing it and looking at those grooves and angles, and you
make a minute change to that glove, then that's going to effect their bio-mechanics.
So they are going to have to in effect re-learn that stroke.
So they are going to lose efficiency and effectiveness.
[Arielle] It would be really awesome if we could replicate gloves so that you could print as many pairs
as you want, as long as you wanted.
So then, I kind of just took that as a challenge.
[Coach Bleakney] Now, what Arielle has been able to accomplish by scanning the glove, getting a perfect
replica of either the current glove the athlete is using or an older glove that they now need
to replace, they know that it is going to be an exact replica.
[Arielle] We first met Travis at Beckman when we came to do a classroom tour.
And I brought a glove.
And we kind of spent the whole class time scanning my one glove.
The scan came out and then we just kind of cleaned it up on some software and printed it.
And it worked!
Which was kind of really surprising.
I didn't think it was going to be that quick.
I didn't think it was going to be that efficient.
And then I kept waiting for something to go wrong like the gloves weren't going to be
strong enough, the material wasn't going to be good.
But it worked so well.
So this is the first printed glove that I ever made.
I think I've done over 500-miles on this one pair of gloves and they are holding up so well.
For these, to print it it costs $4 for one glove.
So $8 for a pair of gloves.
Which is a pretty big decrease from $250.
So that's definitely a benefit.
And my glove that we made by hand is 174 grams.
And then one printed glove is 70 grams.
When you are pushing for 26 miles, that 100 grams shaved off could definitely make a difference
in maybe a second or two towards the finish line.
[Coach Bleakney] Seconds count.
And, when races and marathons are being won by a tenth of a second or a hundredth of a second,
then those two seconds are pretty important.
But, I think, just the ease of replication, that's the real key point to what Arielle
is doing.
You could have a dozen gloves ready to go, with different pushing surfaces to address
difference environments that you have to train and compete in.
And that doesn't exist now.
We don't have that in our sport.
So this really, truly is groundbreaking.
[Arielle] I do all this training because I would really love to go to the Paralympics some day.
I really love marathons.
So it would be my dream to compete in a Paralympic marathon.
I have been training really hard, trying to get to Rio.
But, if I can't get Rio, 2020 in Tokyo might be my first opportunity to make my first
Paralympic team.
I think that would just be an incredible, incredible experience.
And if having the correct equipment and having the correct kind of glove can help me accomplish
that, then that's huge.
Because that would just be the best thing ever.
I would love that so much.