A father who creates imitation medical devices for teddy bears for sick children is gearing up for Christmas - with over 100 toys ready to be given as presents this festive season.
Nick Hardman, 41, uses eight 3D printers to create tracheostomies, dialysis machines and hearing aids, which his volunteer teddy surgeons then stitch to cuddly toys to give to poorly youngsters.
He said the toys are designed with these alterations so disabled or ill children have toys that look "just like them".
Nick Hardman, 41, uses eight 3D printers to create tracheostomies, dialysis machines and hearing aids, which his volunteer teddy surgeons then stitch to cuddly toys to give to poorly youngsters.
He said the toys are designed with these alterations so disabled or ill children have toys that look "just like them".
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NewsTranscript
00:00But yeah, because she's blind in one eye, you can see what the teddy surgeons have done
00:04to the glasses.
00:05How cool is that?
00:06We've got a couple of scars.
00:07There's one here and one here.
00:08I've got an internal shunt with wires and I've done it all the sound of it on the inside
00:09so you can feel it but you can't see it.
00:22Yeah.
00:23I'm Nick.
00:24I'm the founder of 3D Toy Shop where we are a non-profit where we make toys that don't
00:28exist so children can have a teddy like them.
00:31Now you'll go to a shop, you will try and buy a teddy bear but you will not be able
00:35to get a teddy bear that has got a brain implant because nobody makes them.
00:40Not like desperately out, I'm just making these up and I've just got to apply them.
00:52We're not desperately out?
00:53It's from the safari thing.
00:54Because that's from the safari thing and we haven't got a regular supply of them.
00:55So I don't want everyone to fall in love with this.
00:56From there and put a piece on there that's going to go in.
00:57In there.
00:58You could put this inside popping up.
00:59I really want everyone to have a teddy like them so I designed these toys.
01:14I 3D print them.
01:16I keep them in stock in all these shelves here.
01:18My teddy surgeons come twice a week.
01:21The surgeons fill out the form with the children's medical information and we match up the toys
01:25so that the child's teddy can be just like them.
01:28It will sort of look like that.
01:31Right.
01:32And there will be a hole in here.
01:33I've got the box.
01:34There's a few scars at the back from a tube being put in this internal stent.
01:45And scars at the bottom.
01:48There was a little girl.
01:49She was terrified of a heart surgery.
01:51So we sent her a teddy.
01:52And then she said, Mum, I can't wait to have my surgery so I can be like my teddy.
01:56So to change a child's perception from fear to excitement is just something you can't put a price on.
02:18And then there was a little one who didn't like a hearing aid so she kept pulling them out.
02:21Well she got a teddy and that behaviour has now stopped.
02:24They actually change lives.
02:35I just know it's the most important thing in the world and I want to help them all.